


A World of Wild Eild Evolution

by erttheking



Category: Fallout: New Vegas, RWBY
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pairings to be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-03-20 17:44:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erttheking/pseuds/erttheking
Summary: Life in Remnant is about to change. Courier number 6 investigates something wrong at the isolated Big Mountain research facility and has his life turned upside down. Inspired by Light at the End by BlindingPhoenix





	1. Relocation

Chapter 1

Relocation

XXXXX

Something was wrong with the transmission from Big Mountain. Granted, it was hard to ever say that there was something right with it, but it was wrong in a different way. Its normal transmission had been replaced with a long, piercing note that sounded like there was something broken on the other end. For the first few days, James Walker had thought it might correct itself. Now, two weeks after it had started, he had to accept that something was most likely wrong at the secret research facility. James fiddled with the dial on his Pip-Boy, futility hoping that the problem was on his end, but to no avail.

"No change?" He looked up from his Pip-Boy to see Arcade Ganon looking at him with questioning eyes. He shook his head. Arcade sighed. "Well, I guess we're heading over there to see what the problem is. If half of what you told us about Big Mountain is true, we can't let any of it get loose into the Mojave."

"Some of it already has gotten into the Mojave," James replied. "Cazadores, Night Stalkers and Spore Carriers are all their handiwork. The last thing we need is giant robot scorpions getting into the mix."

Arcade grimaced. "All the more reason to not let them out. And here for a second I thought we were overdoing it bringing this much ordnance in." He looked down. With the exception of the helmet tucked under his arm, he was wearing a suit of Enclave Tesla armor, his father's, and holding an odd looking rifle in his other hand, a YK42B pulse rifle. Despite the name, it wasn't anything like the pulse gun and had no EMP capabilities, it was just a damn powerful weapon that had once been a staple of the Enclave armory. Arcade wasn't sure if there were any others like it out there anymore.

"No kidding," James said, looking around. He hadn't just brought Arcade. Boone, Lily, Raul, Cass and Veronica were nearby, ED-E floating above them all. Arcade was easily the most heavily armored and armed out of all of them, with Veronica coming in at a close second. Despite her preferring to travel light and to get by with only a power fist, which she had replaced with a pair of displacer gloves, she was wearing T45-d power armor and clutching a laser rifle, all of it salvaged from the bastards that had massacred the Followers of the Apocalypse outpost. While she had been reluctant to take anything from the Brotherhood of Steel when she left, James had managed to convince her to deprive those murders of their equipment. After all, their little stunt had doubtless gotten them expelled from the Brotherhood and their equipment was merely listed as missing, not stolen.

Boone was wearing his 1st Recon survival armor and was scouting the distance with an anti-material rifle. James actually had mixed feelings on splurging the caps for that heavy weapon, because Boone rarely used it. Often the sniper switched back to his old hunting rifle and just let Veronica carry it so long as she was in power armor. To be fair, he often proved he didn't need it, and the few times he did he had it with him.

Cass hadn't bothered to change out of her caravanning outfit, simply tossing an old bulletproof vest over it, but she had taken a riot shotgun to replace her old one. As well as a 40mm grenade launcher and a few belts of specialized grenades, including plasma grenades, which seemed to bring her an endless source of joy. James could still remember the first time she had shot one into a pack of legionaries. She had been cackling for hours, so much so that it had even brought a smile to Boone's face. Either that or he had been smiling at the liquefied legionaries, it was hard to tell with him.

Raul was wearing his Vaquero outfit, a .44 magnum in each hand. James couldn't help but privately wonder if the reason Raul had moved up from one magnum from two was because his outfit had a pair of holsters and he wanted to make use of both of them. The two century old man certainly had mastered the art of dual wielding, but James couldn't help but wonder. In addition to that, he had a brush carbine slung over his back.

And finally, Lily. Lily was the only person who had not received any major equipment upgrades since James had met her. Mainly because it was kind of hard to improve on a nine foot tall blue giant that was tough as nails and had a giant sword. Lily didn't even need the sword half of the time. Half of the things that threatened them, she could kill with a nice, solid punch. James had suggested armor, the only thing he could think of, but she had turned him down every time. She didn't want anything that slowed her down or made too much noise.

That only left himself to check. He had two weapons slung over the back of his scavenged Desert Ranger armor. One a riot shotgun much like Cass', a Gun Runners original that had cost him a good deal. The other was a more odd weapon, one that he had found in Zion, along with his armor. A rifle that had been designed to take 12.7mm ammunition instead of 5.56mm. The result was a weapon that wasn't as powerful as Boone's anti-material rifle, was rather expensive to resupply and could fire half as many shots as a service rifle before it had to be reloaded, but was unbelievably helpful against more armored targets. The kind of weapon he'd be needing in Big Mountain in other words. Finally, his side arm, the 9mm SMG that had once belonged to the Pre-War criminal Vance. It lacked the stopping power of his other weapons, but spat bullets at such a high rate that it was handy for when he was being swarmed.

Grabbing his rifle, he unholstered it, checking the magazine and confirming that it was full. "Boone? See anyone?"

"No one," the ex-NCR soldier said, getting to his feet. They were all standing in the middle of the Mojave Drive In, around the crashed satellite that had taken James to Big Mountain the first time. There were now several hundred bullet holes in it, along with the scorch marks that indicated that explosives had been set off on it, cleaving it clean in half. "Your handiwork?"

"Really didn't want anyone to use it to get to Big Mountain," James said, privately thinking that, while that had been the case, it had also been a very therapeutic experience. A few charges would've done the trick, but spraying the satellite until it was a smoldering wreck. Despite this, the signal had continued to broadcast from a source James couldn't find, but with the teleporter in the satellite disabled, it didn't matter. The signal normally just sounded like a bad drive in movie theatre ad, so no one would be able to figure out that it was connected to a Pre-War government research facility.

And yet, despite that, something was clearly wrong with Big Mountain. When the signal hadn't changed back to its normal, panic had flowed through James. Had someone, by some miracle, managed to stitch the satellite back together? A thought that had haunted his mind all throughout the gathering of his friends and the desperate sprint they had made for the Mojave Drive-In. But no, the satellite was still damaged beyond repair. This had quelled the overwhelming feeling of dread that James had felt, but left him with a feeling of uncomfortable certainty. If no one had gotten to Big Mountain via the satellite, what was going on?

"James? A few questions about Big Mountain, you never told us that much about it, and your explanation on the way here was a little hasty," Arcade said. James grimaced, he had been expecting this. He had done a fair bit of traveling in the three years since the Legion had been beaten out of the Mojave for a second time, and he had been thrust into quite the set of misadventures. He told his friends what had happened, but had skirted on a lot of the details. Partially because he didn't like to relive what had happened, partially because a lot of it was personal for him and others (Veronica had been the only one to hear the full details of what had happened in the Sierra Madre) but in the case of Big Mountain, it was a combination of the former and him not wanting to risk information of the place being leaked.

He trusted his friends with his life, but the more people that knew a secret, the bigger a chance of that secret being leaked. He hadn't just refused to mention anything about it, still giving them the broad strokes of what had happened, but he had also explained that there was a lot of nasty things there that would be better off buried. Most of them hadn't argued, although Veronica had confronted him after that and accused him of going down the same road of the Brotherhood of Steel, hoarding technology that could help people without a plan for that.

That had forced James to think a bit, explaining to Veronica that some of the nastier aspects of the Big Mountain could easily kill countless people if mishandled, to which she had replied by asking if all of it was like that. At her urging, James had gone back to Big Mountain every once in awhile to dig for information that could help the people of the Mojave, preferably non-combat related. The result had been some minor finds that he had relied upon Arcade to leak to the Followers of the Apocalypse, who would then spread things out ever further, to the rest of the Mojave and eventually out west to the NCR core regions. So far, he had leaked a few hundred seeds for crops that needed far less water to thrive and gave twice as many seeds, recipe for a chemical that acted as an effective substitute for Med-X, and simpler methods of Stimpack production. Arcade had gawked when the formula for said Stimpacks had included barrel cacti.

This had made Veronica much happier, and James himself was glad that she had talked him into it. In hindsight, the zeal and damn the consequences mindset of Father Elijah had possibly pushed him to be too extreme from the other end of the spectrum. That being said, there had always been a fear in the back of his mind that someone would still try and abuse the advanced technology of Big Mountain, so he kept the darker aspects of it secret.

"Shoot," James said, turning to face Arcade.

"Just to make sure we don't end up wandering into something that looks friendly and helpful before old Polyphemus lumbers in and bites our heads off, what should we expect and what should we look out for?" Arcade asked. Everyone else's attention was now firmly on James. Even Boone was watching him over his shoulder and ED-E was now facing directly downward.

"Ok," James said, running through his memories of the place. "If it moves, there's a 99% chance it'll try and kill you. The spore creatures from Vault 22? This is where they came from. I tried to burn them, but they may come back, they're resilient little things. Aside from that, there's also cyber-dogs, not unlike Rex but nowhere near as smart or friendly," ED-E gave a rather annoyed sounding beep, "more than a few robots, some crazed lunatics who had their brains cut up by the Think Tank, all of them will probably attack on site. No matter how many I kill, there always seems to be more of them, it'd take a few hundred people to properly clean that place out. As for the Think Tank, they're harmless and inert. For the moment. Klien is dead and the rest are staying idle, but I'd rather we stay away from them just to play it safe and keep it that way. You're not missing much, they're effectively a bunch of senile seniors that are only lucid half of the time."

"Kill everything we don't like, ignore the rest, find what looks like madhouse," Veronica said idly. "Don't go changing our daily routine too much there James, we might all get whiplash." James gave a small laugh.

"Now now dearie, don't go saying mean things about your elders," Lily said, reaching forward and giving James a gentle pat on the shoulder that nearly caused his knees to buckle. "I'm sure they're not what they used to be, but even then they're probably still very nice people." James privately thought that even kindly old Lily might be rethinking that statement if she had had to deal with the Think Tank exploding in horror at the sight of the ten, massive, thick "penises" she had. Oh god, what if CASS had had to deal with that? James wondered in horror.

"Yeah boss, you gotta be nice to us old people," Raul said, his voice more dry than his skin. "Real old people, not pretenders like you who think they're old just because their hair is starting to turn gray."

"So long as we have it clear that you're old and I'm not, I think we're in a good spot," James said, earning a grin from Raul. The gray hairs that had started popping up all over his head two years ago were getting hard to ignore, a good half of his head was gray now, with only the upper sections of the hair still managing to be brown, shrinking every time he had to cut his hair. Truth be told, at fifty-one he wasn't sure whether to consider himself old or not, there wasn't exactly a universal standard in the wasteland. Though Raul had a point, he certainly wasn't old so long as he stood next to him, Lily and the Think Tank. Not that they were metrics that were fair compared to a body that still aged, but still.

"So, Think Tank are non-combatants," Boone said simply. "Understood. Any others in the area?"

"Mobius, but he's practically identical to them, and provided he's not high off his long since rotted ass, we won't even see him. Aside from him, pretty much everything that moves is a hostile. Target rich environment if you would." Reaching into his rucksack, he pulled out a small gun like object. The teleporter gun that would take him to Big Mountain. "Any other questions? If not, grab onto me, this is the only way I can get back into there now."

"Wasn't bad enough that we had to deal with one megalomaniacal maniac keeping himself alive to fuck the world long after his time, we had to get six more," Cass said sourly. "Ten caps says they caused this entire mess in the first fucking place, probably without realizing it." It certainly wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, James had to admit. "But hey, cleaning up the messes left behind by dishits is practically part of our way of life now." Reaching forward, she put her hand on James's shoulder, the others following suit while ED-E nuzzled the top of James's head. After giving a quick check, he pulled the trigger.

The nice thing about teleportation was that it was quick and painless. One second, they were in the heat of a mid-afternoon day in the midst of June, the next, they were in a pleasantly air conditioned room. "Looks Pre-War all right," Veronica said, as the group broke away and examined the room they were in. They were on the balcony of the Sink, the forcefield in front of the railings giving them all an excellent view onto the rest of Big Mountain. Dozens of research facilities in various states of repair, some holding up wonderfully, others looking like they were in dire need of a tune up.

There was also one that James didn't recognize.

"The hell?" he said, to himself more than anyone else. Moving forward, he peered out as far as he could without touching the forcefield. He knew from experience that doing so would be a very unpleasant experience. The new building was dome shaped, the color of white that had long since been stained with dirt and grime, and the soil around it looked like it had been recently shifted. "That wasn't here last time."

"Looks like it was underground, look" Arcade said, pointing to the base of the dome and mounds of loose dirt that circled it. "That's the kind of mark something leaves when it comes out of the ground. That thing was hiding the whole time you were here." He glanced at James. "Now, I don't want to sound paranoid, but what is so important that they need to have a secret facility at a secret facility?"

"Somehow I don't think it's gonna be a hidden stash of medicine and candy," James said, a nasty feeling sprouting in his gut. The first time he had been to be Big Mountain, he hadn't walked away the same. Even now, while his heart was beating faster, it was much more controlled and evenly paced than it had even been before he had encountered Big Mountain. That had been awkward to explain, along with his now unbreakable spine and the fact that all of his upper skull was now metal. Although thankfully surrounding a fleshy brain. He grimaced. The new heart, spine, and metal skull were all extremely helpful, but he couldn't help but despise the way in which he had gotten them. If possible, he'd rather never go back to Big Mountain at all, but that wasn't an option.

"Ok, everyone, follow me, we gotta get in there." With a firm stride and his rifle at the ready, James led his companions into the Sink, hoping that they wouldn't ask too many questions about all the sapient appliances and that Muggy wasn't in the middle of an episode. Thankfully they were moving too fast to stop, and after a few minutes of nativating the inside of the Sink and the Think Tank, they had made their way outside without any issues.

"Hold it," Boone said, putting his arm in front of James as they neared the new building. Kneeling down in the loose soil, he examined it closely, his eyes narrowing. "There are footprints in here. A lot of them. A dozen people at the very minimum, probably more."

"Shit," James swore, "any idea who?" That was his worst fear realized, someone else finding Big Mountain. The question is, who had been the one to find it and how bad was the damage?

"Yeah," Boone said, digging into the soil and producing a small pouch with a drawstring. Opening it just a bit, he showed the inner contents to James. Gold and silver coins. The denarius and aureus of the Legion. "They don't like advanced technology," Boone said, tossing the money to James, who pocketed it. "What are they doing going after cutting edge Pre-War tech?"

"Caesar's a hypocrite," James replied instantly, being sure to use the incorrect pronunciation of the name. "He was more than willing to make a deal with the Van Graffs for energy weapons and he had an auto-doc in his tent the one time I was at the Fort. It just couldn't get the job he wanted done." He silently prayed that Caesar was dead now, that the tumor festering inside his skull had finally finished him off. The Legion had certainly been quiet ever since they were fully pushed out of Nevada, that could easily be taken as a sign that they were without a leader to drive them forward. From a certain perspective anyway.

"They're getting desperate then," Boone said simply. "If they're scrounging around Pre-War ruins, spitting in the face of Caesar's supposed precious values, it means they don't think they can hold out without an ace up their sleeve."

"Which also means that they've got reason to think that whatever's in there can help them beat an enemy they've lost to twice," Veronica said. "As much as I'd like to think that Caesar's just a misogynistic prick who's doing all this because he's bitter he can't get laid any other way, he's not dumb. He wouldn't commit this many bodies to such a dangerous place unless he knew it would be worth it."

"OK, right now the working plan is to hit them hard and torch anything that looks too dangerous. I don't care how hard it'll be, if Caesar wants it, we're all going to want it gone." That got him a good chorus of nods before the group continued their advance, stopping just outside the door to the dome. "Veronica, Arcade, you two first," James said, pressing the button next to the door, causing it to slide open. Both power armor clad figures advanced, James stopping to let them take the lead before following behind them.

Whatever the dome was, it was thankfully well lit. Passing through what looked like an atrium, they crossed a threshold and found themselves in what looked like a military checkpoint. Sandbags had been piled up to act as a choke point, although no one was manning it. "This is out of the ordinary," James said, "the rest of Big Mountain wasn't like this."

"To be fair, by the sounds of it, the rest of Big Mountain was a lot more bugfuck crazy," Cass said from just behind him. "Frankly I'm not complaining that this new add on is turning out to be the boring step-dad of the family. I'm more concerned about the guy or gal mom is fucking behind the dumpster to liven up her sex life."

Another threshold brought them into a cross between a lab and a mechanic's workshop. Dozens of different tables were laid out across the room, mechanical parts that James didn't recognize at all, some assembled, some disassembled, and whiteboards coated every corner of the room, all of them covered with complicated equations. "Veronica, can you make anything out of this?"

"Not a thing," Veronica admitted. "This is more advanced than anything the Brotherhood ever found. If they knew this place existed, they'd be calling in Knights and Paladins from as many chapters as possible to secure and strip this facility."

This room had three more doors leading off of it. One lead to a massive room that was stuffed to the brim with bunk beds and laundry baskets. The other led to a kitchen with a dozen different stoves and gardens that had long since been overrun with weeds. The third room on the other hand, was different. As the door opened, a dazzling light hit them all. Inside, was a metallic archway that thinned into fine metal points as two parts reached an apex, noticeable wires coming out of it at nearly every part. In the middle of the arch was a shimmering white portal that almost looked like a reflection on water except for the odd white tint and a strange landscape that James didn't recognize. Blast shields filled the room, a couple looking like they had been snapped off, but the rest suggesting that they had been there to keep something between the portal and those observing it from any direction.

There were also no less than two dozen legionaries in the room, many of them looking at the portal, but some of them had been watching the door. "PROFLIGATES!" one of them shouted. James's rifle snapped onto him, firing a shot that reduced his head to red mist, but the damage had been done. All around the room, the legionaries realized that they were no longer alone, and weapons, blades and guns both, were drawn.

James fired a quick shot at the next nearest legionary as he raised a SMG before throwing himself behind one of the barriers. Both Arcade and Veronica opened fire with their energy weapons, reducing a few of the legionaries to ash, and causing the lion's share of the enemy fire to focus on them. Taking advantage of this momentary tunnel vision, the rest of the group filed into the room, with the exception of Boone, who took up a position by the doorway aiming his hunting rifle into the room, his anti-material rifle placed to the side.

Within seconds, the room was a chaotic mess as both Arcade and Veronica took cover, even power armor could give out under enough strain and neither one of them wanted to push their luck, and the legionaries took cover themselves. Bullets, grenades, and the occasional spear filled the air as the fighting quickly devolved into person to person combat, with there being no overarching strategy, but the act or die split decision making of a dozen different firefights.

Peeking out of cover, James fired off a quick shot at a legionary that had been taking aim at Raul, enabling the Ghoul to take out a pair of legionaries by emptying his revolvers at them before he ducked down to reload. He had to duck down a second later as a burst of gunfire and a spear streaked overhead, the latter embedding itself in the floor behind him. "It's him! It's Barca! Focus on him! Cover me!"

Peering out of cover, James spotted a Centurion charging at him, a Super Sledge raised over his head, the thruster in the back ready to fire. James threw himself back just in time, the hammer came crashing down, the Centurion leaning over the cover, leaving a crater where James had been a second before. Sliding a few inches backwards on his back, James leveled his rifle as best he could and fired. The shot tore through the Centurion's leg, causing him to stumble, but he still pressed on, swinging at James again.

Fuck fuck FUCK! James internally screamed, kicking off a nearby blast shield to push himself away from the Centurion, the hammer just barely missing him as it hit the ground again. Desperately, he attempted to right his rifle, only for a strange shimmering to fill the air to the right of the Centurion. "Young man, that is very rude!" With the grind of metal on metal and the nauseating sound of something wet and squishy being torn, the Centurion's sides tore open, blood soaking a phantom sword that was otherwise invisible. "But Lily knows how to deal with brutes like you!" The barely visible sword pulled back and struck again, biting into the already open wound and cutting halfway into the man's gut. "My goodness, your mother must be ashamed."

"You saved my fucking ass Lily!" James shouted, scrambling back into cover, pressing his back against it as bullets came uncomfortably close. A few spurts of blood opened near Lily's blood-stained sword. Though she didn't seem bothered that she had been hit.

"James dearie!" Lily said, sounding appalled. "You're better than language like that!"

"Sorry!" he said, knowing full that he would only stop swearing when his life stopped involving people shooting at him. Blind firing a few shots in the direction of gunfire, he chanced another peak out on the far left side of his cover. He saw a legionary holding a very large looking sphere that couldn't be anything other than a bomb. Pushing a button, he gave it a heavy heave and threw it across the room.

The ball rolled to a halt in front of James, who braced for detonation. Instead, the top opened and a speaker jutted out. The battle froze, every last person in the room staring at the bomb. Then, a bombastic voice filled the room. "Greetings filthy communist scum! Whether we're at home in good old America or in your backwater third-world nation, you have the pleasure of dealing with the newest and greatest achievement of the stars and stripes. Your death by a state of the art time bomb! Our scientists-"

Realizing he had a chance, James lunged forward, grabbing the ball, and beaned it as hard as he could it back in the direction of the Legionaries. He got one right in the face with it, knocking him to the ground, howling in pain and clutching at his broken nose. Scrambling back into cover, just avoiding a few bullets, he hollered, "get down!" He had a bad feeling that whatever that thing was, it would be comparable to a mini-nuke in terms of destructive power. He ducked down his head and waited. There was a loud clang right next to him.

"Not that any of you would understand the merits of hard work when you just sit on your asses and collect government handouts like the parasites you are! I had to work my ass off since I was fifteen, my daddy wouldn't lend me so much as a nickle if I didn't mow the lawn first, and you assholes think you can just say ahhhh and-"

"Uh, General Chase? This is just a test run and we can't record for much longer."

"I'll make if brief then. In short, fuck off and god bless America! This message will now repeat in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese."

"Oh come on!" James hissed, grabbing the bomb and throwing it over his cover. Five seconds later, it came rolling back around the corner, speaking Chinese that, even though James didn't know a word of it, was obviously clumsy and clunky. "Lily! Chuck it!" Grabbing the babbling thing, he tossed it across the room to the Nightkin.

"If you insist deary," she said, stretching her arms out before raising the bomb about her head and pitching it with a vicious ferocity. The bomb tore through the air, hitting another legionary in the gut, who silently crumbled to the ground and did not get up just as the bomb started to play the Star Spangled Banner over the horrible Chinese. Then, without warning, it exploded.

It was a plasma charge, a ball of green exploding outward and swallowing up five legionaries, and clipping the edge of the the portal. There was a deep sucking noise that filled the room, and the portal swelled, slowly growing to eclipse the archway. Without warning, James was hit by a powerful sucking sensation that pulled him off his feet. Half of his body hit the side of a blast shield, flipping him upside down as he desperately grasped for a grip. He managed to get an awkward hold on the side of the blast shield, the suction pulling his rifle out in front of him, it only stopping due to the strap he had attached to it that was still slung over his shoulder.

Most of the legionaries were sucked into the portal before they could react, being closer and having less reaction time, but a few were holding onto blast shields, even as the portal tried to pull them in. He gave a quick look to check on his fields. Lily, Arcade, and Veronica were all stumbling, but remained firmly on the as they grabbed holds on the blast shields. They were apparently heavy enough to stay on the ground. Raul had wrapped one arm around Arcade's leg and was firing carefully placed shots with his free hand. Veronica was crouching flat against one of the blast shields, just barely out of range of the suction, and was angling her grenade launcher over the top with some difficulty. ED-E had its back to the portal and was flying as hard as it could away, causing it to look it was stuck in midair.

Boone on the other hand, had flown completely out of the doorway and had nothing between him and the portal. Veronica darted outward and grabbed him by the back of his outfit, leaving him awkwardly billowing about in mid-air as the ex-scribe tried to keep her grip. "Hold me steady!" Boone shouted, raising his hunting rifle and chambering a round. Taking aim, he opened fire, and the head of the nearest legionary exploded, his lifeless body losing its grip and being sucked into the portal.

With difficulty, James grasped for his SMG, not sure if he could reach his other weapons, and pulled it loose. With one hand, he aimed at the three remaining legionaries, all of whom had drawn their pistols and were taking what shots he could. The first burst missed by a long shot, going well over the heads of all of his targets. The second hit the front of one of the blast shields. The third managed to hit a legionary right in the throat. Jamming down on the trigger, James continued to spray, adjusting to get the legionary next to the first. Three or four bullets hit his front armor, and while the 9mm bullets didn't penetrate, it did knock him loose from his grip, causing him to be sucked into the portal along with the corpse.

Taking aim at the last legionary, James pulled the trigger, only for the hammer to give a distinct "I'm hitting something but it ain't a bullet" click. The legionary, having spotted the source of the gunfire that had hit his allies, took aim with a 9mm pistol and fired. His aim was true. The bullet hit James right in the chest, knocking the air out of him and causing him to lose his grip.

No no no no NO FUCK FUCK FUCK! Even though his new heart could pump much more blood with each beat than his old one, it was now hammering in his chest as panic flooded him. He dropped the SMG, both hands stretching in every direction for something to grab onto, but there was nothing. He was tumbling over and had been flipped right side up again when something heavy hit him in the chest. Looking down, he saw ED-E pressed into his chest, trying to push him back away from the portal. But ED-E had barely been able to push away its own weight, and all it could do was slow James down a bit.

As the portal drew even closer, he spotted the last legionary, laughing in triumph. Twisting in mid-air, James kicked out and caught the legionary square in the face. "You're coming with me asshole!" he shouted as he, the legionary, and ED-E hit the portal. James was blinded by light, and the world around him disappeared.

XXXXX

There was a rumble like thunder and, the next thing James knew, he had hit a hard, asphalt road at the speed at which he had hit the portal. After the initial pain of the impact hit him and began to dull, thoughts began to filter through his head. I'm...not dead? Pushing himself to his feet, he looked down at his hands. He had half expected that portal to vaporize anything that had gone into it, if it was experimental even by Big Mountain standards, but he didn't seem to be harmed at all.

"Wait, ED-E!" he shouted, looking around him. To his relief, he saw the eye-bot a few feet away. And just behind him where half a dozen legionaries, all of them getting to their feet, with a few bullet riddled corpses on the ground. The portal had not been harmful at all. To anyone who had gone through it.

"Fuck," he hissed, scooping his SMG off the ground and turning to look for cover. There was an abandoned store not far from where he was standing, the front display window having been smashed. "Over here!" he shouted, gesturing to ED-E, who followed him at once. Running as fast as he could, he vaulted into the store, crouching down and sliding into cover just as bullets started to fly again.

"ED-E, any idea where that portal sent us? Are we in Nevada still or somewhere else?" The robot gave a confused beep as it slid into cover next to James. "Ok, here's the plan. You scout out the back of this place and see if there are any ways out, I'll keep them busy. If you find a way out, let me know and I'll leave them some presents while we make a run for it. Got it?" But ED-E didn't respond, and was staring into the corner of the room. A family of five was huddled in the corner, what looked like a mother, father, teenage daughter and young boy and girl children. And now the Legion was firing into the building they were hiding it.

"Oh no," James said, realizing just how badly he had screwed up. "Look, you gotta get out of here! I'll hold off the Legion! ED-E, new plan, find a back door and get them someplace safe, don't wait for me, I'll meet up with you-"

"We can't go out there!" the father shouted, "it's swarming with Grimm! Didn't you see!?" James focused on the father. He had to blink twice to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He had four ears, a pair of regular ears, and a pair of shaggy dog ears with bright golden fur further up his head. James was baffled. He had never seen a mutation like this before. Or was it the result of Big Mountain DNA splicing? It doesn't matter, figure it out later, he told himself.

"What the hell is a Grimm?" James asked, poking his head out of cover to see where the Legion soldiers had taken position. He almost dropped his jaw. Two of them were dead on the ground, one was sobbing as he crawled on the ground, an arm missing, while the other three were running. One of the runners stopped, grabbed the one armed legionary, hoisted him up into a fireman's carry, and took off again.

Wolves were in the street, the biggest wolves James had ever seen in his life. They were the size of Deathclaws, with pitch black fur as dark as night, bleached white bones jutting out at random points along their body, with blood red eyes shining out of the bare skull it had instead of a head. One of them was holding a severed arm in its mouth, while a pair were descending on the two fallen legionaries, tearing them to shreds with their claws. There was no speculation on what a Grimm was.

Feeling more than a little terrified, James crouched back down. The Grimm didn't seem to have noticed them, he had to approach this carefully. Picking up the SMG, he reloaded it with a fresh magazine, before ejecting the clip in his rifle and topping it off before sliding it back in. "Are you a Huntsman?"

He looked back at the family. The young girl was looking at him with a mixture of confusion and hope. He had no idea what a Huntsman was, but he could tell saying no would crush what hope the girl had. She couldn't be older than five. "I'm better," he said, putting on a smile before remembering that his helmet was still on. He wished he could take it off, but removing head protection in the middle of a combat zone was a bad idea, metal skull or not. "I'm a courier. I deliver things, and I'm about to deliver you all to safety."

That was the dumbest fucking thing you've ever said in your life, he couldn't help but think. It seemed to be a common consensus. Both parents had winced at the line, the teenager was staring at him as if she couldn't believe he had just said that, and ED-E made a beep that sounding suspiciously like a raspberry being blown. But both of the younger children looked enthralled. "Is he really mommy? Is Mr. Courier going to save us?" the young boy asked.

"Yes, but you need to do everything I say," James said, looking at both the mother and father. Unholstering his shotgun, he held it out to him, handle first. "Do any of you know how to use one of these?" Slowly, the parents and the elder daughter all shook their heads. Shit James thought. It'd be one thing if just one of them knew how to use a shotgun, but with kids in the picture? That's a recipe for friendly fire. "Ok, I need you to follow me. Stay close, stay quiet, and stop when I tell you to stop." He poked out of the window. "Which way is safest? I don't know the area."

"That way," the elder daughter said, pointing east if the slowly setting sun in the opposite direction was a good indicator. "The other way would take you to the docks."

Docks? I'm on the coast? Am I in Washington? Oregon? Because this place doesn't look NCR. Now that he thought about it, the building he was in and the ones around him looked extremely well maintained. Almost as if some of them had been constructed recently. Maybe that portal thing went crazy and I'm on the east coast, or another continent all together James thought. Now's a bad time. Eyeing up the streets, he saw that the wolves were begining to move off, though not in a pattern he could make out. In the distance, he could hear gunfire, and they seemed to be moving vaguely in that direction. He prayed that they were chasing after the last few legionaries.

Examining the streets more closely, he spotted alleyways that the wolves might not be able to fit into, and even if they did it would only be in single file. "Ok, run across the street and into the buildings, now! ED-E, go on ahead and let us know if you see anymore of those Grimm things. Stay high, don't let them get at you." Giving a confirmatory beep, ED-E sped off into the alley as James vaulted himself over the window frame, rifle in hand. "Come on!" he said, his voice low but sharp.

The family was quick, James suspected that it was half panic and half pent up stress from being forced to hide for so long, but they didn't lag that far behind as he led them across the street, the mother and father each carrying one of the younger children. James's eyes darted back and forth, checking for more of the mutant wolves, but none were in the area. At the moment. They reached the alley, sliding into it, with it only being wide enough for two people at a time, and James crept along to the end, peaking out.

Three of the wolves were there, having fanned out across the street, their noses pressed to the ground as they sniffed. They didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave the area. James looked down to his side. Five copperish canisters with glowing green prongs were there. He could afford to use one. "Cover their ears," he said to the parents, taking one of the canisters and flicking a pin on the side out. Two of the Grimm were converging on each other. As they did, the young boy gave a barely suppressed sob. The closest Grimm's head snapped up, staring in the direction of the alley they were on.

Shocked at how acute the hearing on these things were, he didn't waste any time, hurling the canister right between two of the Grimm. James wondered if they had ever seen a plasma grenade before, and if they would understand why the tiny bit of metal thrown between was worth paying attention to as it detonated. An orb of blinding green light flashed as the explosion engulfed two of the Grimm, the last one roaring and charging at the alley. Righting his rifle, James opened fire. Four caught the wolf in the stomach, causing it to stumble, getting uncomfortably close, before a shot to the head caused it to collapse flat onto the ground mid step, with James firing another headshot just to be safe.

Things are tough, that'll be a problem, James thought, checking the area for more Grimm. At least his plasma grenades were effective, there was nothing left of the first two he had killed. In fact, there was barely anything left of the third. The body was barely there anymore. James had looked away for what couldn't be more than ten seconds, and the little bit that was left was collapsing into a pale substance that looked like it was halfway between dust and mist, before it vanished all together. As he watched, James could've sworn that he heard the slightest tick from his Pip-Boy's Geiger counter, but a quick check revealed no radiation levels in the area.

"Ok, you're doing good, all of you, keep moving," James said, giving one last check before dashing out, heading to another gap between buildings. He was halfway across the street when he spotted movement on top of a building next to one of the ones that made up the alley. Figures in white armor. James blink. Local guards? They had the weapons for it. Weapons that were being aimed. Right at them. "MOVE!" James shouted, just as the bullets started to fly.

Stopping at the head of the alley, James took aim and emptied what was left of his magazine, trying to suppress the shooters. The daughter reached the alley first, turning around and pulling her mother in, with the father right behind them. The shots were coming dangerously close, many, James realized with horror, being aimed at the family and not at him. One bullet tore into one of the father's human ears, reducing it to a mangled mess that was only half attached to his head. The man stumbled and fell, still clutching his son tightly, who was now crying in confusion and fear.

Darting out of cover, James grabbed the man by the shoulder and ungracefully but quickly dragged him towards the safety of the alley. He felt someone brush by him and the next thing he knew, the daughter was helping them, having grabbed the other shoulder. It couldn't have taken more than three seconds to get the father back into the alley, but it felt like an eternity with bullets streaking by. James felt one skim the top of his helmet, leaving him feeling like he had just taken a hammer to the head, complete with ringing ears. When they were out of the crossfire, James pressed the father against the wall, producing a stimpack and a bundled of bandages.

"Hey, stay with me," James said, injecting the man's sides with the stimpack before wrapping the bandages tight around the ear. "What I just injected you with will speed up the clotting process, but you're gonna need to get medical attention fast. Understand? You gotta get to a doctor as fast as possible when you get out of here or that wound's gonna get worse." The man nodded groggily, he seemed to be half out of it, but still had his son in a vicelock grip.

After the wound was bandaged, he glanced at the mother and elder daughter. "Who were those people on the roofs?" he asked. A rage was building up inside him very quickly, only growing as the son's sobs began to grow.

"White Fang," the elder daughter said, looking at her father and sounding as if it was taking everything she had to stay calm. "But I don't get it! Dad's a Faunus, why would they try and hurt him!? He's one of them."

"I don't know dear, I don't know," the mother said, trying to comfort her elder daughter with a hand on the shoulder while bouncing her younger daughter in an attempt to keep her from crying. Judging by the way the young child was looking at her father, that was a losing battle. "I don't even know what they're doing here."

James thought fast as he reloaded his rifle, pocketing the empty magazine. Then, he spotted a chained side door in one of the alley sides. To the building that was right next to the one the gunmen were hiding on. His eyes narrowed, the rage pulsating through him. "ED-E, get these people to safety," he said, to a confirmation beep from the robot. "Ok. Listen. We're not gonna be able to get out the far side of the alley with them up there, they'll just hit us from the other side. I'm gonna take care of them. Don't wait for me." He pointed to ED-E. "Follow him, he's never steered me wrong before."

ED-E responded to this by playing a triumphant score of trumpets over his speakers, flying in front of the elder sister and mother before staying rigidly still in mid-air. ED-E's version of snapping to attention. Unholstering his shotgun, James blasted the chains off the door before reholstering it. "Can you stand?" he asked the father. He nodded gingerly as he slowly got to his feet, his eldest child moving to support him. "Don't wait for me, you can't afford to stay still while I deal with every last one. Stay right behind ED-E. ED-E? As soon as you hear me engaging them, move. Get them out of this hellhole. All of the family looked at him with something on their face, but James didn't stop to figure out what it was, and disappeared into the building.

From the inside, it looked to be some kind of corporate HQ for a small company. Desks, cubicles and lounges dotted, streaking past as James charged through until he found the stairwell. Even as the fight or flight adrenaline was pumping through his body, he couldn't help but take in what good shape the building was in. It didn't even look like a fifth of it had been scavenged yet. He mentally made a mark of what the building looked like, if he was far away from the Mojave, he would have to scavenge up supplies for the trip back once the family was safe.

The top of the stairwell loomed in front of him and he took the flight of steps three at a time before slamming into the door. As he had hoped, the door had taken him out onto the roof of the building, which was dotted with vents from air conditioners and heaters. And just across the way were seven people in white armor, their faces covered by masks of the same color, all of them armed and with their weapons trained on the streets below them. "I can't see them, they must be hiding in the alleyway," one said.

"We're wasting our time here, Adam said to fall back!" said another, his voice carrying across the roof to where James was. "The plan went all wrong, someone triggered it early, and Atlas is moving their heavy hitters in. We're all gonna end up in an interrogation room if we stick around, or worse, the morgue."

"They're right there! We just need a few more minutes and-" the first one said, but before she could say another word, there was a loud bang and a hole the size of a fist burst open in her skull. James bared his teeth in anger as he hid behind the door frame, aiming his rifle at a new target.

While the logical part of his brain was telling him to play it smart, the emotional part wasn't listening. "HEY! TRY FIGHTING SOMEONE WHO CAN ACTUALLY FIGHT BACK YOU FUCKING COWARDS!" He chastised himself for losing his temper like that, but he couldn't deny the anger that was boiling through his veins. Shooting at unarmed civilians? Civilians with kids at that? They were all dead. He didn't know who they were or why they were doing this, and to be frank, he couldn't care less. None of them were living past the hour. Six left he thought, taking aim and pumping two bullets into the chest of another one of the figures as they all scrambled for cover on their rooftop. She clutched her chest, still holding her weapon weakly, before she stumbled and slid off the side of the building, falling three stories to the ground below. Five.

He snapped into cover as a hailstorm of fire tore past both ends of his cover. Well, the good news about his outburst was that it had made sure that all attention was on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted ED-E darting into the streets, the family right behind him. "I'll catch up with you buddy," James whispered as he took stock of his situation. Now that he had actually gotten a chance to shoot at these people in white, and the family was out of harm's way, his anger was starting to die down. And he realized he was in a less than ideal situation.

He was outnumbered. True, he had slimmed the odds from one to seven to one to five, but those were still hardly odds to brag about. And with the way they had him pinned, a forward firefight would be a bad idea, it would play right into their strengths, and he didn't know what kind of firepower they had. He had to play this one smart.

The building on the other side of this one, the one that wasn't covered with people trying to kill him, was a rather big and wide one, with plenty of venting systems to hide behind. The vague outline of a plan began to form in his head. Taking a running start, James leapt the gap between buildings, hitting the roof hard and rolling to recover. Not having long until the five surviving gunmen realizes what he had done, James jumped through the maze of exposed vents before he got to the very far end. Unholstering his rifle, he placed it against the far side of the vent before undoing the straps for his helmet and placing it on top of the rifle's barrel. To someone looking from afar, the propped up helmet would look like someone taking cover. From afar.

As he took a few steps back to check his work, the gunfire stopped. "Did he jump!?" he heard a voice cry. He didn't have long, this plan was a long shot, and it would all be ruined if they saw him out in the open. Drawing his shotgun, he dashed to the side of the building, finding a nice bit of cover that only left a few feet between him and the edge, and slid it behind it, laying flat and out of sight. Shotgun in one hand, he took one of his four remaining plasma grenades and waited.

After a few minutes, he heard heavy grunts followed by footsteps as the gunmen made the same jump that he did. "He's gotta be here somewhere. Spread out, don't-"

"Look, Adam, Adam, told us to pull back! Atlas's airships are right over our heads! We're gonna get swarmed and massacred if we stay here much longer," a second, angry voice said. On pure instinct, James looked up. His heart caught in his throat. Giant, silver ships were hovering in the air above him, at least a dozen of them. They were sleek, they were shiny, they looked like they had just come off an assembly line, and they were disgorging a wave of much small craft that were around the size of Vertiberds.

James's mind reeled at the impact of this sight. He had thought it was impressive that a couple of VTOLs had been restored by the NCR, and these people had not only managed to get ten times as many up and running, but those giant ships they were launching out of. But nothing about any of these designs looked Pre-War. Were they all home brewed? Had these people advanced to the point where they had climbed back to Pre-War levels of infrastructure and technology? Was that even possible.

Dark thoughts found their way into James's mind as he pondered this, remembering something he had heard three years ago. "Give me 20 years and I'll reignite the high technology development sectors. 50 years and I'll have people in orbit." Mr. House had claimed that he could have done something like this, and he also claimed that he had been hampered by his predictions being slightly off. With House, it was damn hard to tell what was empty bravado and what was him simply stating what he was capable of. If House hadn't been giving empty boasts, and these people had had the foundation House had had and hadn't been stuck with the handicaps, maybe it was possible.

House's voice echoed in his mind. "A bit late for idle speculation, don't you think? The NCR you idly threw away so much out of the misplaced belief that every average simpleton has an opinion that needs to be considered by even the highest authority, do you think they'll be able to stand against these juggernauts? Their archaic human wave tactics yield moderately respectable results when they outnumber their opponents ten to one, but you've already seen that they struggle when the odds are not overwhelmingly stacked in their favor, even when they face a man who's merely a warlord with pretensions of grandeur. These people? They seem to be a fair bit more, don't they? If they want the Mojave, want California, want all of the west coast and beyond, there's not a thing the NCR, the Legion, or Vegas can do to stop them. I could've. There's even a sliver of chance you could have. A sliver. But you've already made your choice. But still, it could be an enlightening experience for you, to experience classic Pre-War subjugation. Most likely some form of imperialism, possibly neo-colonialism if they prefer a more hands off approach. The end results will be the same though. I hope your choice was worth it."

Reaching around his neck, James looked at something that was hanging there, tied to a string. The Platinum Chip. With a .44 magnum bullet lodged directly in the center of it. His grip tightened in anger. Even to this day, he wasn't sure he had made the right choice regarding the fate of Vegas. For a few minutes, he had held the future of Vegas in his hands. The opportunity had been right in front of him, when he had Benny cornered in his suite. The plan laid out in front of him, the Platinum Chip in the same room as him, and Benny disarmed.

But the idea had scared him. It still terrified him to this day. Taking all the power in Vegas, at the head of an army that neither the Legion or the NCR could oppose, being untouchable. Yes he could use that power for good, but after all the time he had spent opposing Caesar and those like him, the idea of taking the power had felt like a betrayal. A hope for an independent Vegas, yes, but one where one autocratic dictator was replaced with another. A hope for a more secure future at the cost of freedom in Vegas. He had at the same time wanted to scream how wrong it was, yet part of him couldn't help but consider the potential benefits, and that he could make it all worth it.

His hesitation had cost him the chance to make that choice. Benny had made a run for it. The fucking little piece of shit, James thought bitterly. Straight into Legion territory. James had chanced a trip to the heart of Caesar's territory, against the advice of all of his friends, only with Caesar's promise of protection assuring him it wasn't a one way trip. Well. He had gotten the Platinum Chip back. Kind of.

"He's over there!" James was snapped out of his thoughts as gunfire broke through. There were a few bursts, followed by a cry of triumph. "Ha! Got him right in the head!"

"Great, yeah, fantastic," an annoyed man's voice said. "Now let's go!" Slowly, James removed the pin from his grenade, peeking up over cover. All five of them, clustered together, their weapons trained on the spot he had left his rifle and helmet.

"One second, gotta double tap him, make sure he's dead," one of the women said, taking a step forward. "It'd suck if he shoots us in the back on the way out." A smart move, one James probably would've made himself. Mainly because he had a unique relationship with double taps. Though in this situation, the smart move wasn't the safe one. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the grenade into the thick of the White Fang. "Oh F-" the woman screamed as the grenade bounced once and then detonated.

Rising up, James took am with his shotgun, squinting through the blinding light of the grenade. Two of the White Fang were gone, puddles of green goop were oozing on the ground where they were three seconds ago. One still had an intact body, but was most certainly dead, her head was split open diagonally and her right arm and leg hand been blown off. Two were on the ground, badly wounded with severe burns and open gashes, but still alive. James pumped two shells into the nearer one, hitting him in the torso with the first and face with the second, before turning his attention on the last one.

"HUMAN! YOU'LL-" the woman screamed as she struggled to raise her SMG, but what exactly James would do or experience, he never found out, for three shotgun shells were quickly emptied into her. James let out a deep breath that he didn't know he had been holding as he got to his feet. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and his body was starting to ache. His head from the bullet skim, his stomach from the trip through the portal, and his feet from the rooftop jump. It all felt so much sharper now that he wasn't actively fighting for his life.

Crossing back to where his rifle and helmet were, he picked them both up. A bullet was now lodged in the back of his helmet, a SMG round by the looks of it. Idly considering the explanations that would have to come from this, he pulled the bullet out, strapped the helmet back on, and slung his rifle over his back before he topped off his shotgun's magazine.

"One quick thing," he said, moving to where the dead White Fang members were. Bending down by the last one he had killed, he grabbed her SMG and held it up. It was clean, looked brand new, and felt good in his hands. Ejecting the magazine, he checked the ammunition within. He tilted his head. The bullets inside had bright silver casing and what looked like a red glowing section. They looked vaguely like 9mm bullets, but he wasn't sure, and he didn't feel comfortable stuffing these unknown elements into his SMG. He tucked it away into his rucksack, he would examine it later.

Drawing his rifle, he took a few steps forward before stopping dead in his tracks. Five more White Fang members were standing on the rooftop he had jumped from. Three were unremarkable, but one was an utter giant of a man, looking as if he was only an inch away from being seven feet tall with what was unmistakably a chainsaw sword resting over his shoulder, and the other was wearing what looked like a custom uniform. Solid black coat and pants, the coat partially unbuttoned to reveal a red undershirt, and exotic splashes of white and red on the left shoulder of the jacket, forming symbols James didn't recognize. The boy, and he couldn't be older than eighteen, had bright red hair, what were unmistakably a pair of bull horns, and a sword at his side.

James raised his rifle, but paused when he noticed none of them had opened fire yet, even though all of them had their weapons trained on him. All of them were looking to the boy with the bull horns, silently asking for directions. The boy was focused directly on James. At least, James was fairly certain he was, it was hard to tell, the boy was wearing the same mask as the rest of the White Fang. "How many freedom fighters did you just kill?" he asked, his voice low and angry.

"Freedom fighters? Zero," James replied. "If you're wondering how many murderous assholes I killed today, seven. There were a couple of others before that, but they weren't yours, so I doubt you care." James considered his options. He had a talker on his hand, the type that liked to speechify before he did anything. He could use that, but he had to pick just the right time. "Shot at a bunch of civilians, hope you don't mind that I wasn't going to sit around with my thumb up my ass with that going on."

"They shot at humans," the boy said simply. Something clicked in James's mind. The boy's horns, the father's dog ears, how the daughter had said the father was one of them, one of the White Fang calling him human. Oh goodie. It's one of THOSE situations, he thought bitterly. "After everything they've done to us, all they're still trying to do, you defend them. You-" but James decided that he wasn't going to entertain this boy. He had an opening and he wasn't letting it go to waste. Mid-sentence, he leveled his rifle directly at the boy's head and fired. He shifted, taking aim at the big one with the sword, when something happened that caused his jaw to physically drop.

With a blur of motion, the boy drew his sword, the blade a blood red that shined in the sun, and slashed in front of him. There was a clang of metal on metal and, there was no other way to interpret it, he had slashed the bullet in half. A moment of silence passed as the boy silently stood with his sword out and James gawked at him. What?

The boy took a step forward and a fresh sense of adrenaline surged through James. Focusing back on the boy he fired twice, one aimed at the head before shifting down for a gut shot. Another blur of motion followed and the boy's sword rose up to meet both bullets, deflecting them with deadly precision. WHAT!? James abandoned all restraint, firing his rifle until the chamber clicked empty. Every time a sword met his bullet, and while he could've sworn that the very last shot, one that had been aimed low at a leg out of desperation, didn't seem to be blocked, the boy only stumbled back. There was no damage visible at all.

You're out, no time to reload, switch weapons, he thought. His rifle was slung over his shoulder and his shotgun was halfway up when the boy jumped. One second, he was on the other building. The next, blinding pain tore through James's side. Blinking in shock, he looked down and saw the boy right in front of him, his sword up to the hilt in James's torso. His armor had done nothing to stop it. The boy was smirking. "Just a human," he said, before drawing his sword down in a single, fluid motion. The pain was so great that the edges of James's vision went black. The blade tore down through his stomach before the boy drew it out, following up his stab with a strong kick.

James flew back across the roof, slamming into one of the vents and getting the air knocked out of him. Gasping for a breath he couldn't take, blood dripping out of his mouth and flowing out of his torso, James fell to all fours, his weapons loosely hanging on him. He felt like he had just been kicked by a Super Mutant. "That's the funny thing. For all their bluster and power, humans aren't too hard to kill," the boy said, slowly stepping forward. "It's so easy to make them pay." Not seeing any other options, James grabbed another plasma grenade, primed it, and tossed it at the boy. Not stopping to see if the boy was taking cover or had sliced it in half, he forced himself through the agony and onto his feet, over the vent and towards the roof's edge.

The grenade detonated behind him and he half jumped, half was blown off the top of the roof into a freefall, his ears ringing in addition to all the other pain. His fall was brought to an abrupt end as he slammed back first into a car, denting the roof and adding more pain that was slowly coming to dominate his entire body. He's still up there, that grenade will slow him down at best. You need to MOVE!

With great difficulty, he forced himself off the car, onto the street below, and he ran. He ducked into random alleys, charging out of one and into another three more to the left before shifting directions, doing everything he could to throw the boy off his trail. His disbelief at the boy's feats and how utterly impossible they were clashed at his desperate struggle for survival. His guns slapping against his back, he reached into his rucksack as he ran and produced a stimpack, jamming it into his arm with some difficulty. But it was a band aid measure, he was still bleeding badly and the edge of his vision was still going dark. He had to find a safe place to stop and properly patch himself up.

He rounded the corner, thinking that he would have to duck into an inconspicuous building where he would hopefully go unnoticed, and found himself face to face with five Grimm. He skidded to a halt so fast that he almost fell over, drawing and leveling his shotgun at the Grimm. They were undaunted and began to advance on him, spreading out so that they could come at him from multiple angles. After the desperate run, James's legs felt very weak, to the point where he had to put a hand on a nearby wall to stay upright. With his right arm, he kept his shotgun raised, trying to figure out which Grimm would charge him first, and trying not to think about how bad his odds were.

Then, out of nowhere, a black rope shot towards one of the Grimm, wrapping itself around its neck. A young girl in black and white came into view from the far end of the alley, the far end of the rope in her hand, which she used to pull herself forward, using feats of strength and agility that should be impossible for any human, let alone one her size, to directly on top of the room. Whatever it was she had in her hands, she used it to fire a burst of rounds directly into the Grimm's neck, killing it.

Jumping off it with a graceful backwards flip, she fired her weapon as she fell, killing two more of the Grimm before she hit the ground, the last two charging at her. She did something with her weapon, and it was no longer some bizarre grappling hook and SMG combo, but a rather blocky sword, one that she didn't hesitate to use.

One swing took off the front leg of one Grimm, the follow up decapitating it. After that, she dashed forward towards the last Grimm, which raised its hand to slash at her. "LOOK OUT!" James shouted, realizing in horror that the wolf would hit her before she hit it. But it was too late. The clawed paw of the wolf came crashing down on the girl, smashing here into the ground where she...collapsed into shadow? Unless James's eyes were playing tricks on him, the girl had vanished, the Grimm looking at where she had been with the same confusion that James felt.

Then, she was back, behind the Grimm. A flurry of slashes ended the Grimm's life within seconds, tearing it apart as it began to collapse into a black smoke that quickly faded away. Checking to make sure there weren't any other Grimm in the area, the girl approached James. She was barely any older than the boy, though she wasn't dressed as a member of the White Fang. A black bow was perched neatly on top of her head, and she stared at him with bright gold eyes that looked at him with suspicion. Suspicion that quickly gave way to shock. "Are you all right?" she said, starting forward. She glanced back over her head. "Is this what you were trying to show me?" At the end of the alley, ED-E was flying towards them, a mess of beeps coming from him.

James tried to form a reply, but all that came out was a gurgle. It was so very hard to stay standing. Vaguely reaching up in the direction of his helmet, half baked ideas of taking it off so he could empty his mouth, his legs gave out. He collapsed to the ground, darkness enveloping him as the girl's voice and ED-E's cries grew fainter and fainter.


	2. Wild World

Blake sat uncomfortably in the hospital waiting room, staring at the book in her lap, despite the fact that she hadn't turned the page in half an hour. So much had happened in the last 24 hours. The White Fang launching an attack on Vale, the Grimm breaching the city's limits, and a coordinated counter-attack by both Vale Huntsmen and Huntresses and Atlas's army. And yet, amongst all of that, this little anomaly was more confusing than anything else. A man in strange armor that had stopped to protect a family from White Fang and Grimm, and two dead men with crude, makeshift armor. All three didn't fit into any frame of reference that Vale or Atlas was aware of.

The only thing that they had to go on was that the man who was still alive had armor that marked him as a soldier. Staff Sergeant R.B. Vickers, blood type O positive. Except that wasn't right. Before the doctors had begun blood transfusions on him, they had tested his blood to be sure, and he was A positive, not O positive. He had still been given O type blood, the blood being a universal donor, but it still concerned Blake. If they had been forced to give him a field transfusion with no time to check his blood and he had not been marked as having blood that was a universal donor, he could have easily have been killed by an ABO Incompatibility Reaction. Why was he wearing armor that identified his blood type incorrectly?

Blake glanced around the waiting room. Despite what one might expect after the walls had been breached, not too many people had been injured. There were still quite a few, but there were more Atlas soldiers in the waiting room than civilians waiting to see how friends and loved ones were doing. Many were looking at the soldiers in confusion, but Blake knew why there were there. Sergeant Vickers was an unknown element, a soldier operating in Vale without permission or reason, as were the other two men. There were signs of battle that had taken place within the city limits of Vale, with weapons that didn't match any weapons that investigators could recognize. Something was wrong here, unknown elements were trading fire inside Vale, ones that had no signs of being from any of the four kingdoms, and Atlas wanted to know who they were and why they were here.

And yet. Sergeant Vickers didn't seem to be someone who wished harm on Vale or its allies. He had protected a defenseless family from Grimm and White Fang. But that still left the question of who exactly Sergeant Vickers was. The only clue they had was the acronym right next to his blood type, USMC, with no idea what meant.

"I'm guessing you've got more on your mind other than Slave to the Sword?" Blake looked up from her book. Yang was sitting right next to her, Weiss and Ruby sitting across from her. Yang looked like she was struggling to stay still for so long, there was a rather fidgety look to her. Still, there was a genuine look of concern on her face. "The guy's going to be ok, isn't he?"

"He should be," Blake said slowly. "But things can always go wrong when people are in his condition. Unexpected complications. If he has pre-existing conditions that the doctors don't know about, who knows what might go wrong?"

Yang smiled brightly. "Oh, that's a rookie mistake. We got good doctors here, some of them who use their Semblances directly for healing. And Atlas is looking over him, making sure nothing goes wrong. He'll be fine." Blake nodded silently. Logically, Yang was right, but something about this entire situation felt wrong and out of place. Like she was missing half of the pieces to the puzzle.

"Ugh," Weiss said from across the room. Both she and Ruby were looking at a scroll together, a news report playing on it.

"Word has come in from the isolated town, not an hour ago, that the White Fang appeared, opened fire in the town's marketplace, and then disappeared," came the familiar voice of Lisa Lavender. "First responders have confirmed that there are, at this moment, at least 14 dead and many more wounded. This attack coming mere hours after the White Fang's unsuccessful attack on Vale has led many to believe that this much smaller follow-up attack is a matter of revenge or spite for the White Fang."

"It isn't bad enough they tried to kill everyone in Vale, but now they lose and they just start murdering innocent people in unimportant towns?" Weiss hissed. "How petty is the White Fang?" Ruby gave a sad mumble of agreement, more focused on the scroll than what Weiss was saying. Blake's fingers twitched in anger. Hadn't enough people already died today?

"Ms. Belladonna?" Blake looked up. An Atlas military officer with graying hair and a white coat was standing in front of her. General Ironwood, a man who had been in the news quite a bit lately as the commander of the Atlas detachment in Vale. "You were the one that brought Sergeant Vickers here in the first place?" Blake nodded. "If you would, I'd like you to come with us. The doctors say that Sergeant Vickers is showing signs of waking up. Since you saved his life, we think it would make things much more smoothly if you were there when he comes to."

Blake nodded as she got to her feet. The rest of her team made to follow, Ruby and Weiss both looking up from Ruby's scroll as they did, but General Ironwood raised his hand. "Just Ms. Belladonna, please. This is a very delicate situation and I'd rather not have the man be overwhelmed."

The rest of team RWBY slumped back into their chairs. Ruby looked like she had just been told off, Weiss looked like she had been insulted and was trying to keep up a polite face, while Yang simply looked annoyed. This wasn't lost on General Ironwood.

"My apologies," he said, giving a small nod of his head. "It was not my intention be disrespectful. Your team has done us all a great service. You were faced with a situation that would have put seasoned and battle-tested Huntresses to the test and you persevered. Thousands of lives were saved because of what you did; you should all be deeply proud of what you've done." The faces of Blake's team all softened. Ruby clasped her hands as her face turned red, Weiss forced smile relaxed and became more natural, and Yang gave a very pleased with herself smirk. "But we've got a lot ahead of us, and right now this situation requires a careful approach. I assure you, your talents will be needed in the very near future. Too soon." With that, he gave Blake a questioning look.

She nodded and followed him as he led her deeper into the hospital. "There are some things I need to tell you before he wakes up. I cannot emphasize enough how much of an anomaly this man is. The working theory was that he was a survivalist who was living outside the kingdoms, but that theory fell apart almost at once." General Ironwood passed a pair of Atlas soldiers that had cordoned off the end of one of the corridors on the hospital's lower floors. There were only a few rooms beyond it, one of which had another pair of soldiers standing guard in front of it. Sergeant Vickers' room.

A table had been set up outside it, strewn with a wide variety of weapons, equipment, and things Blake couldn't even recognize. "He was armed to the teeth," Ironwood said, pointing to five guns and a knife that were lying on the table. All of them with wear and tear to them, with the exception of one. "A semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun, two SMGs, and a pistol." He picked up the short-nosed pistol, which was very elegant looking compared to the rest, though still somewhat battered. It had an odd looking grip, and a phrase on the side in a language that Blake didn't recognize.

"This was strapped to his back, underneath his coat," Ironwood said, putting the pistol down. "And we found a silencer that fits it." He was frowning with displeasure, and Blake understood why. A concealed pistol and a silencer? That was something that heavily implied black ops work or other similarly unsavory fields.

"And the ammunition he was carrying for all these weapons combined could supply a small platoon, a lot of it specialized. There are half a dozen different variants for the shotgun alone." He gave an annoyed sigh. "This selection of weaponry doesn't make any sense. I can create theories for the pistol and theories for the other weapons, but they contradict each other. If he was an assassin, the other weapons draw too much attention. And if he's not an assassin, why the pistol? And the rest makes no sense at all."

He gestured to a large, bulky gauntlet with a green screen surrounded by buttons and knobs. The words "Pip-Boy 3000" were printed on the bottom in fading yellow paint. He then pointed to a small pile of syringes and bottles, unfamiliar labels on them. One of them was marked "Buffout." "I've been going through my contacts in Atlas intelligence, and none of them even faintly recognized any of these. And even the guns confuse me. I've been a military man since I was your age, and I only recognize one model out of these five." He pointed to one of the two SMGs. Unlike the other guns, this one was shiny and looked brand new. "A model commonly used by the White Fang. And considering he was carrying so much ammunition and yet he had nothing for this outside of what's already in the magazine, I conclude he took this off of a member of the White Fang he killed. That matches up with your story about him helping a family under fire."

Blake had to hold back a grimace. She had left the White Fang behind a long time ago, the organization had become rotten to the core, but it still brought her no pleasure to hear that members of the organization had been killed. Many of them were scared and lashing out because they thought it was the only thing that could be done in a cruel and unfair world. Still. They had been trying to kill innocent bystanders. A family of five that had had to drag one of their own to safety because of them. They had put themselves in a situation where the man who had killed them was a hero.

"I had some men examine the area Sergeant Vickers was found, and we located five dead operatives. And a puddle of green liquid with white fang equipment in it. In the middle of a blast zone." He looked at her. "Do you have any idea how much it takes to liquidize a person like that?" She shook her head. "More than we've been able to do with small arms or explosives. And Vickers has no Aura."

Blake paused. "I'm sorry general, you're talking about him like you think he's a threat. I understand being cautious when you don't understand something, but he saved people today."

"I appreciate that," Ironwood said, his voice level, "but this man is still potentially dangerous. None of these weapons are legal for civilians to own without special licenses, which he does not have. His rifle takes exceptionally heavy caliber bullets for its size, some of his shotgun shells are incendiary, and a silencer is simply illegal for civilians to own period. And there are certain indicators he's done things that he feels particularly guilty about." Vickers' helmet was lying on the table, and Ironwood pressed his finger against it. Specifically, what was scrawled on it. "MAMA FORGIVE ME."

"He's a wild card. We have to take precautions until we know more about him," Ironwood said. "I don't intend to treat him as a known hostile, but we have to take precautions." He looked at Blake. "Are you ready to go in? At the moment we're just trying to figure out who he is, where he came from and what he's doing here. Are you up to this?"

Blake nodded. "I've been wanting to know myself ever since I found him." There was a private reason why Blake was more than happy to see Sergeant Vickers, but she didn't say anything. Not yet. Not until she was sure.

"Don't overwhelm him, try to make it natural. Look at me and blink twice if you want me to take over." With that, Ironwood pushed the door open. Vickers was lying on a bed with an oxygen mask over his face and a few tubes feeding him VI fluids, a doctor examining him and two more soldiers were standing guard by the window. Vickers was stirring.

The doctor stood back from the bed, looking angry. "General, I'm glad you didn't end up handcuffing him to the bed, but I find it hard to work on my patient when there are armed soldiers in the room," she said heatedly as she slowly started to remove the VI tubes. "He's stable now, but I'll have to ask you not to do anything that could open his wounds," she added.

"Hopefully it'll only be a temporary measure," Ironwood said. "In the meantime, I do need you to step outside." She turned and strode to the door without comment, almost as if she had been expecting this, shooting Ironwood a filthy look on the way out. "I think I've been more than lenient personally," he said to Blake. " I did let his companion stay." He pointed up. The robot that had been with the family and had led Blake to Vickers was floating up near the ceiling, whirling softly as it looked down on Vickers. Blake couldn't help but notice that the soldiers seemed more concerned with it than Vickers. "Any problems?" he asked, "it hasn't attacked you has it?" The soldiers shook their heads. The robot glanced at Ironwood and let out a series of beeps. "--. --- / --. . - / .-. .- .--. . -.. / -... -.-- / .- / -... .-. .- .... -- .. -. / .- ... ... .... --- .-.. ." Blake had no idea what to make of it.

Slowly, Vickers' eyes fluttered open, the man groggily looking around. Then they snapped wide open. He sat bolt upright in his bed, the blankets being thrown aside, as he looked around, frantically tearing the oxygen mask off. Blake tensed and so did the soldiers, but as Vickers' eyes fell on Blake, he stopped. "You," he said slowly. "Where am I?" Vickers was a man who looked like he had more years behind him than ahead. Hair that had mostly gone gray, a fairly thick stubble of the same color, and the beginning of crow's feet around his eyes. He also looked like he had been through the wringer in life, because even though a good chunk of his torso was covered, Blake could see scars from bullet wounds and blades all over it. Even what looked like surgical scars near his heart and a very odd couple of scars on his temple.

"Vale Medical," Blake said with uncertainty. "Best hospital in the city. You were injured and needed medical care." Vickers glanced down. His torso would've been bare if it wasn't utterly covered in bandages where his torso had been split open. Relaxing, he slouched back in the bed, looking flustered.

"Sorry about that," he said, sounding abashed, "bad experiences with hospitals." He stared at nothing in particular for a second, his gaze going glassy before he shook his head. "You saved my ass out there," he said, giving Blake a small smile. "Never seen anyone move like that. Who are you?" As he spoke, the robot floated down and nuzzled Vickers, the man affectionately patting it as it did, before it flew back up to the ceiling.

"Blake Belladonna," Blake said, feeling a little bit of warmth in her chest.

Vickers' smile widened. "I'm James Walker." Blake blinked before looking at Ironwood in confusion, only to find him looking back. James noticed. "Uh. Something wrong with my name? It doesn't mean anything inappropriate around here does it?"

"No, we were under the impression you were Sergeant Vickers," Ironwood said. "It's what your armor said."

James's eyes widened in understanding. "Ah. That'd do it. Well, that armor wasn't originally mine. Thought it'd be obvious that I scavenged it, it belonged to a Marine. That makes it Pre-War by default. Well technically another guy scavenged it first and then I scavenged it when I found his camp long after he died."

"The Great War?" Ironwood asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Blake didn't blame him. James's armor was many things, but it didn't match anything related to the Great War. Why was James lying?

"Not really another war I can be talking about," James replied. "Sorry, didn't catch your name." James's eyes wandered, spotting the soldiers.

"General Ironwood," Ironwood said. "May I ask what you're doing in Vale?"

"Yeah, that," James said. "Ok, cards on the table, I don't know where I really am. I was poking around...a deserted facility and I stumbled into some weird portal thing and got sucked in. No idea how far I got sent. Any chance I could have a map?"

"Of course," Blake said before Ironwood could reply. Pulling out her scroll, Blake brought up a map of Remnant and moved forward. James's eyes widened in shock at the scroll.

"Crap! That's some high-tech stuff you got there," he said admiringly. "Makes my Pip-Boy look like a rusted up piece of junk." Smiling, he took the scroll and looked at the map. Almost at once, it slid off his face. He looked at it for a few seconds before shifting his gaze to Blake. "That's not funny."

Blake blinked in confusion. "It wasn't meant to be a joke."

"Ok," James said. "Can I please get a proper map then? I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it isn't anything tangible." James looked a little insulted, as if Blake had just handed him a child's coloring book when he had been asking for something important. "I-you know what, look. Where's my Pip-Boy? I got a proper map on that, it'll eliminate any confusion."

"A few questions before that," Ironwood said. "We picked up a couple of bodies near where you were found. Two men in odd armor and antiquated weaponry. Do you know anything about them." Almost at once, James's face was covered in disgust and hatred. The change was so abrupt that it almost made Blake take a step back.

"Oh I know them," James said darkly. "Soldiers from Caesar's Legion. They pronounce it Ki-Zar, but most people pronounce it See-Zer. Mainly because f-" his eyes darted towards Blake and he came to a sudden stop mid-sentence. "Because screw them," he finished. "Marauding band of slavers and wannabe conquerors. There's only a couple of things they've not stooped to. Torture, public executions, and a lot of other things I don't feel comfortable talking about." Again, he glanced at Blake. "Wait a minute," he said, a creeping realization working its way into his voice. "You said you found two bodies? As in, only two?"

"Two and an arm," Ironwood replied. His face had been steely ever since James had made the remark about the Great War, but here it slackened a bit. "Why, are there more?"

"Four more," James said, holding fingers up to emphasize the point. "I think their leadership is dead, but if you've got any guards in the area I'd put them on alert. They weren't too heavily armed, but they could still cause some harm if they're not stopped before they reach unguarded civilians. They were wearing the same armor as the ones you picked up." Ironwood nodded before pressing his fingers to his ear, speaking to someone on the other end. James turned to talk to Blake upon seeing Ironwood was busy at the moment. "I would've gone after them myself, but then those Grimm things showed up." He shuddered. "What are those things? How much radiation did they soak up to turn black like that?"

"Radiation?" Blake said, feeling very confused. "I...no one knows where Grimm come from. They've been around for as long as we can remember." She had no idea why James thought radiation had anything to do with Grimm. Sunlight beams and radio waves creating Grimm? Blake was starting to get worried. Not recognizing a map of Remnant and now a nonsensical theory like that? Had he suffered some form of head trauma recently?

Ironwood lowered his fingers. "Thank you for that. I'm glad that you are being honest and upfront with me. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable before I continue with my questions?"

"Little stuffy in here, any chance you can open a window?" James asked. Ironwood replied by shooting a look at one of the soldiers, who responded with a nod. The lone window in the room was closed with a shade pulled over it, something both soldiers moved to rectify. Within seconds, an unlocked window was open, letting a pleasantly cool breeze in. The sun had long since set, and now moonlight was flowing in from outside, the moon perfectly visible.

"Thanks," James said, looking outside with a look of relief before looking back at Ironwood. "Now you said you…" he started before slowly trailing off. He frowned in confusion before looking back at the window. Then his eyes widened. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE MOON!?" Everyone in the room jumped back, even James, who leaped out of his bed, exposing a rather worn pair of pants that he was wearing, and wincing as he put pressure on his wounds. "I just-it fucking-broken-WHEN THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN!?" he shouted, gesturing at the shattered moon.

"Mr. Walker?" Ironwood said, sounding taken aback but still remaining calm. "The moon has always been like that." Behind his back, he made a subtle gesture to his soldiers, who signed back silently. Blake had no idea what he had specifically told them, but she had a bad feeling they would be much quicker to draw their weapons now.

"Bullshit!" James shouted. "I looked up at the damn thing last night! It was in one piece back then." He pressed his palm into his forehead in exasperation. "What the hell is going on!? Ever since I ended up here nothing has made any goddamn sense! Giant wolves that are bigger than I am, people growing dog ears, an underage little shit deflected nearly an entire magazine's worth of bullets with a sword, and now the moon is fucking broken!? What HAPPENED!?" He pointed at Blake. "And I'm sorry, I really don't want to sound ungrateful, you saved my life, but HOW!? How did you move like that!?"

Blake was beyond confused now. He didn't understand the moon, Fanus, Grimm, and Aura? Even the most backwater village situated in the middle of nowhere would know about all of them with the possible exception of Fanus if they were really isolated. "Mr. Walker, all of those are perfectly normal," she said, not sure how else to phrase it. "Any Huntress who didn't graduate on a fluke can match my speed, I'm still in training."

"Huntress?" James said, looking and sounded like instead of an answer he had been given another question. "I just-what the fucking-none of this makes any goddamn sense."

Blake paused for a second, not sure how to reply. Then a thought hit her. "Wait a minute," she said, bolting for the door and exiting the room. Darting to the table laden with James's possessions, she grabbed the gauntlet marked Pip-Boy, and headed back to the room. Stopping in front of James, she handed it to him. "There's got to be some kind of misunderstanding here. Could you please show me where you came from?"

Blinking a few times before understanding what Blake was asking, James nodded and took the gauntlet, affixing it to his left arm. Pressing a few buttons and twisting a knob, James held out his wrist so Blake could see the screen. It was an incredibly poor quality map of some kind of world with six different land masses, although for some reason the upper right one was split in half and seven different continents were listed. James had not been exaggerating when he had said that her scroll made this look like a piece of junk. "There," he said, pressing his finger near the west coast of the north-west most continent. "Nevada, specifically the Mojave Wasteland."

Blake brought up her scroll again, the map of Remnant still on it. "You're here right now," she said, pointing at the city of Vale. The two of them stood there in silence, eyes darting back and forth between the maps. Blake felt frustrated. She had felt like if they had the map James felt was the right one out, and the actual map of Remnant, something might click. Instead, it made even less sense. "How did this happen?"

"Wait," James said, sounding as if he had just realized something terrible. "This planet. What's its name?"

"Remnant," Blake replied. Her mind was racing now, considering the implications of what he had just asked. The name of the planet? No. It couldn't be. Could it?

James looked like Blake had just announced his death sentence. Staggering back, he slumped back onto the bed, looking devastated. He dumbly looked around without seeing, at a lost for words. Then, his hands curled into a fist, and anger blossomed on his face. "KLEIN YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" he shouted.

An awkward silence followed this. Blake was the one to break it. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" James gave an awkward nod. "But how does that work? You know what the Great War was. Earlier, you mentioned it and said that there couldn't be another war that we were talking about."

"Question," James replied, looking rather morose as he spoke. "Did your Great War involve a mass exchange of nuclear weapons?" Blake blinked in confusion. Nuclear whatnow? James noticed her confusion. "Ok, that explains a lot," he said. "I was wondering how the heck you had such advanced technology. And it turns out the answer is that you didn't smash your infrastructure back to the stone age. Heh. Fancy that." He gave a forced smile.

"Wait, what's a nuclear weapon? What do you mean smashed your infrastructure?" Blake asked. Just out of the corner of her eye, she spotted General Ironwood tensing a little bit, but he didn't say anything.

James sucked in a long breath. "Oh boy. Well, quick little history lesson, stupidly abridged. Back where I'm from there used to be a lot of countries and all of them heavily relied on fossil fuels; a lot of wars broke out when they started drying up. Two major powers, America and China, had a massive war where tens of millions of people were killed on both sides. America had the high ground in that war by a couple of centimeters since China technically struck first, but they both crossed so many lines that they were both vile monsters by the end, America even turning around and conquering a former ally just to have easier supply lines. For over a decade the two tore each other to shreds. And then. Well."

He sighed, leaning back in his bed. "Imagine an explosion that's so powerful that it vaporizes all living matter at its center. Kills it so fast that it's utterly painless because you're dead before your brain even has time to register what's going on. But it's also so powerful that, even if you've got some good distance from the center, you'll probably be killed by third-degree burns and debris going who knows how fast. But that's just the immediate effects. This explosion also comes with a nasty little bonus, copious amounts of nuclear radiation. It kills you slowly and painfully, pretty much every cell begins to break down and die from it. If you're extremely, EXTREMELY lucky, you turn into a Ghoul and live, but otherwise, you die. Or worse, go feral."

He leaned back against the wall, looking at the ceiling. "Now imagine something like that happening hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times all over the planet, targeting every major population center, military base, and anything else that might be of some importance. It was mainly America and China doing it to each other, though from what I understand, pretty much everyone who had nuclear weapons was using them against everyone else who had them. That was the Great War." James snarled, and his voice became very bitter. "It lasted a grand total of two hours. That was over two-hundred years ago. We're still nowhere near close to recovering from it. Governments gone, infrastructure destroyed, environment devastated, and the selfish assholes left us to pick up the pieces."

He sighed again. "I guess we're clawing our way back to where we used to be, but it's painfully slow. The New California Republic only recently got printing presses going again, we have power, but we have to mooch off of Pre-War structures that either didn't get damaged during the war or we cobbled back together, and half of what we use is salvage." He tapped his Pip-Boy. "This was pulled out of a Vault, underground bunker meant to kept people alive through the war." A startlingly bitter and hateful expression crossed his face. "In theory anyway. Turned out that most of them were motherfucking Petri dishes for experimentation." Blake had only heard that much vileness in someone's voice a few times before, and she wondered what exactly James had seen to make him so mad.

That was one of around a hundred different thoughts that were bouncing around Blake's head right now. A war that devastating? One that had reduced an entire world to scavenging and making due with whatever they could repair? That had killed so many people? It didn't seem real. General Ironwood simply stared at James, his mouth slightly open. "How did you get here?" Blake said, unsure how to properly react to James's Great War, and instead deciding that she would ask a question she knew how to actually word.

"Like I said, portal of some kind. It...well, I don't want to go into too much detail, but let's just say some crazy old men and one crazy old lady had this little lab they ran, and I found a portal in there the Legion seemed interested in. Some friends and I had a fight with them, the thing got damaged, and I got sucked in with ED-E. In hindsight, this is the exact kind of asinine thing they would come up with." He paused. "You didn't find anyone else, did you? A man with a beret and sunglasses, a woman with a cowboy hat and bulletproof vest, anyone in stupidly big armor or decidedly not human looking?" Ironwood shook his head. "Not sure if that's good news or bad news," James grumbled. "Probably good, but hard to say."

Ironwood gave a look at the two soldiers. "You two are dismissed, report back to your usual posts." Both soldiers saluted Ironwood and left the room without a word, closing the door silently behind them.

James watched them go with suspicion. "Ok, elephant in the room, I got the feeling that they were there to shoot me the second you felt like I was dangerous the moment I saw them. What changed?"

"After your story, I have reached one of two conclusions," Ironwood said. "One is that you're telling the truth, in which case you're just a lone person lost in a world you barely understand, or that you're deluded in this view of another planet, in which case you deserve my sympathy more than my hostility." James gave a wry smile and raised his middle finger in Ironwood's direction. "Ironically, the more bizarre explanation is the one that has more evidence backing it up, considering how otherworldly some of your equipment is. Either way, I've mostly deemed you to not be a threat. Mostly. May I ask how you turned White Fang operatives to goop?"

"Plasma grenade," James replied. "Pre-War weapon. Damn powerful and useful. Kinda sucks that I only have two left now though," he said. "Come to think of it, I'm probably gonna have my work cut out for me getting resupplies for my weapons. Also, I'm throwing this out there on a faint hope, is there any chance you have any technology that's capable of teleporting someone from one planet, or world, or dimension, or whatever I came from to another." The long silence directed at him spoke volumes. "Had a feeling it was a long shot. So. Where do we go from here? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm effectively homeless and broke here. Safe bet that all the money I have is worthless here."

"I believe I can help with that," a voice said as the door opened. Blake felt a shock go through her as Professor Ozpin stepped into the room, cane in one hand, a scroll in the other. "James?"

"Yes?" Both James and Ironwood said. There was an awkward pause as the two of them looked at each other. "One of those situations, huh?" James said wryly.

"General in that case," Ozpin said. "I got your message about our guest and I was listening at the door for the last part of the conversation and I think I have the gist of it. You no longer consider him a potential threat, correct? In that case, it's safe for me to talk to him and make him an offer."

Ironwood nodded. "Very well. I'll probably have a few more questions for him, he only gave me a partial picture, but I can have those later. I'll have my men bring his possessions in and if you're doing what I think you're doing, that should handle the matter of him having those weapons. Though do be careful Oz." Blake frowned. There was something odd about the way Ironwood and Ozpin were talking to each other. It was friendly but strained. As if something had happened between them. Before anything else could happen though, Ironwood left.

"I'm sorry, you have me at a disadvantage," James said, looking at Ozpin. "Professor was it?"

"Yes," Ozpin said pleasantly. "Head of Beacon Academy." James stared blankly. "It's a school where we train talented young students to be Huntsmen and Huntresses, men and women who fight Grimm and keep people safe. I hear you're in need of work and a place to stay. Tell me, what experience do you have?"

"That's a long one," James said. "Well, my go-to job was courier for a while. It let me travel a lot, so I liked that, but I've done odd jobs all over the place. Caravan guard, regular guard, I acted as an interrogator one time and tricked the guy into thinking I was one of his people who had snuck in, smoothed over diplomatic ties more than once, did some bounty hunter work," he shuddered, "met some nasty people in that line of work, thankfully nearly all of them are targets. You haven't known disgust until you've met people like Cook-Cook and a crazy lady with a knife she calls the emasculator. Aside from that, I've done plenty of what can be classified as merc work for the NCR, that's New California Republic by the way, and seen more combat than I can remember."

"How many people have you killed?" Ozpin asked bluntly. "If I may ask. You've done both mercenary work and bounty hunter work? Exactly how much?"

James looked very uncomfortable. "We talking direct combat here? As in, with my own two hands? Or are we talking anyone who directly died as a result of my actions, intentional or otherwise? Like, if I left a stove on by accident and someone lit a match in the room, we counting that?" James's entire body had gone tense and his fingers were curling a bit. Blake knew that look all too well. She had gone through it herself. The feeling of an uncomfortable subject that you really didn't want to talk about.

"Directly," Ozpin said, his warm smile faltering for just a second. "I assume you didn't go out of your way to kill any innocents?"

"Of course not!" James said, sounding offended, his tension slipping away as soon as it had come. "I can promise you that if I put a bullet in someone's head, they had it coming. As for how many, hold on, let me think. Let's see...there was Goodsprings, NCRCF, Primm, spent a lot of time fighting Fiends. The Legion, let's see... the ambush on the road to Novac, Forlorn Hope, Nelson, Cottonwood Cove, the raid on Bitter Springs, plus the assassination parties, and can't forget Hoover Dam. After that, there were the White Legs. Add in some desperate Jackals, Vipers, and Freeside thugs, that's at least a dozen or two. Those four Brotherhood assholes. The Ghost People, no who am I kidding, they stopped being human a long time ago. Oh, and the White Fang too. Ok. If I had to take a wild guess, people only, I'd say I've killed...around 250 people."

The number hung in the air, staggering with its implication. The number of people Blake personally knew didn't even reach half of that number, and he had personally wiped that many out. "And you're certain they were all deserving of death?"

"Well, let's see," James said dryly. "Wannabe anarchists with a TNT fetish, drugged up bandits that tortured and mutilated for fun, the aforementioned slaving conquerors, a tribe that wanted to join the slaving conquerors, run of the mill thugs that tried to jump me, a few bull-headed zealots that massacred aid workers for pitiful reasons, and as of recently, terrorists that fired without hesitation on civilians. I'm fairly certain. None of them had any interest in doing anything other than being total monsters."

"What kind of world do you come from?" Blake asked before she could stop herself. Remnant had its problems, there was no getting around it, but it sounded idyllic to wherever he had come from.

"If I'm being honest, I ask myself that question twice a week," James said. "I wish I could tell you. It's called Earth by the way. Not exactly the most creative name, and really "water" would've been more accurate, but I wasn't there when they named it." He turned his attention back to Ozpin. "You aren't planning on making me a teacher, are you?" he said hesitantly. "I don't think that's up my alley. You need, you know, actual qualifications for that."

"Oh certainly," Ozpin said. "No no no, far too quick to be offering you a teacher's job. Particularly in the middle of the semester. You need years of experience for that." A sly smile played around his face. "For a teacher's aid on the other hand, not so much." He nodded at Blake. "You've already met Ms. Belladonna, one of my first-year students at Beacon. I'm pleased and proud to say that I have a very talented body of students, one that has exceeded my expectations and held their own in unexpected situations where their lives were on the line. However, while I don't think you would be a good fit for a head teacher, I think you have potential as an aid. I hear you held your own out there, even though it sounds like you never fought a Grimm before."

"I killed three," James said sourly. "She killed seven. Frankly, when it comes to killing Grimm, she'd be the one to teach me. As much as can be taught about killing giant wolves, anyway."

"True, but there are smaller little details that you have that my students don't, things you've picked up from a long life. It would be beneficial to pass them on. In a support capacity that is," Ozpin said.

"I don't know," James said uncertainty. "This sounds like a permanent position, and I have to say that I was never the type of person to stick in one place for very long. Even when I stayed in one general area for an extended period of time I tended to move from town to town a lot." He gave an annoyed grunt. "Though to be fair, I'm out of options. I've got a big bag of caps and NCR bills that are worthless here, and I don't know where else to look for work. But I just don't know." Blake was sure she had misheard the word cap. "Oh wait, I got one thing that's worthwhile. Blake, did they pull out a bag of coins when they were going through my things?"

"I'm not sure, there was a lot," Blake said, starting for the door. "Should I check?"

"Please do," Ozpin said. "And please bring your team back with you. I get the feeling Mr. Walker might be able to make his decision more easily if he can see the type of bright young minds he'll be working with. In the meantime, I feel like I have a lot to explain to him." Blake shot Ozpin and appreciatory smile as she slid out of the room. Outside, two Atlas soldiers were gathering up some of James's possessions, specifically his clothes and armor, and moving towards the room. Blake stopped at the table, scanned the small mountain of items, and spotted a small drawstring bag.

Taking it, she opened it and poured out the coins into the palm of her hand. Most of them were silver, depicting a young man, but a couple of them were much larger and gold. The majority of the gold coins depicted an older man, but one depicted a woman with a cleft lip. "They use this as money?" Blake wondered out loud, pouring the coins back into the pouch. It felt like something out of a museum. She continued on her way to the lobby, not sure how she was going to break all of this to them.

When she was halfway there, she realized that in the confusion of learning where James was from, she hadn't gotten a chance to ask her question. Though, considering James had mentioned an "underage little shit," with a sword, she had her answer anyway. "Adam," she whispered, "what are you doing?" Grimacing, she pushed the thoughts out of her mind as she drew near her friends.

XXXXX

As Blake left the room, ED-E let out a string of Morse code. It took him awhile to get through it, making it impractical in the heat of battle, but James was still glad he had taught the little robot it. "I like them both. They're nice."

"You think everyone is nice," James replied as the door opened again and some soldiers in silver armor dropped off his clothes and armor before leaving. "Thank god," he said, taking off his Pip-Boy and getting up. "Hope you don't mind," James said, gingerly getting to his feet, careful not to strain his throbbing chest, and starting to work his clothes on.

"Not at all," Ozpin said. James wasn't sure what to make of Ozpin. He struck him as the eccentric old grandpa that always knew just a little bit more than he said. A stark contrast from Ironwood, who felt well-meaning but certainly had one hell of a stick up his ass. Waking up in a hospital under armed guard had been a highly unpleasant experience, but at least no one had taken any of his organs out when he had been unconscious. He hoped. "But tell me, you seem awfully surprised by Blake's abilities. Do the words Aura and Semblance mean anything to you?"

"I met a couple of junkies who told me I had a negative aura once," James said, sliding his shirt on and then moving to his chest plate, buckling all the appropriate straps into place. "I'm pretty sure they were on both Jet and Buffout at the same time though. Aside from that, no."

"Aura is what enabled her to move like that," Ozpin replied. "Aura is a manifestation of the soul." Instantly, thoughts of Joshua Graham flooded into James's head, and he had no idea how to reply. He had never been particularly religious, and he always felt awkward when caught in a conversation about those kinds of topics. He never knew what to say. But almost as if Ozpin could read his mind, he continued. "Not in the spiritual sense, but in the very real, physically observable sense." Now James was good and lost.

"What?" he said, stumbling halfway through putting his coat on. "I mean...what?"

"All living things have a soul, even plants, and Aura is a physical manifestation of it," Ozpin said, calmly and warmly. "It increases your strength, acts as a shield, permits you to move faster, and allows you to heal faster. Everyone can use Aura, but it requires a great deal of training, and the Aura of many is too weak to bother. It only makes them slightly stronger, for Aura reflects you as a person, and it takes a strong will to have a worthwhile Aura."

"You'll forgive me if I don't want to spend years trying to weaponize my soul only to figure out I was a dud," James said wryly, which earned a laugh from Ozpin.

"Of course not," he said warmly. "There's an easier way to do it. A skilled enough Huntsman or Huntress can use their Aura to activate someone else's. And considering that it would be in your best interest to have an active Aura if you're working at a school full of young people with powerful Auras, well. I'd be delighted to activate yours." Ozpin held out his hand.

James eyed it wearily. "I still haven't said yes to that job offer," he said, trying to equate the pros and cons for all of this and coming up with nothing for either. This was so beyond his frame of reference that he had no idea what the hell he was doing anymore. "I feel like you're trying to entrap me with benefits up front."

Another laugh from Ozpin. "It certainly looks that way, doesn't it? Well, consider this complimentary. Even if you don't work for me, I still think you'll be needing your Aura to get by in this world. I know you're a talented fighter, but Remnant can be very dangerous, and you're going to need every last advantage you can get your hands on." James continued to stare, and as he did, he remembered the redheaded boy who had so easily wiped the floor with him. There were people like that boy out there with the capability to kill him with a flick of their wrist if he stayed the way he was now. And it was with no strings attached. Well. Screw it.

Hesitantly, he reached out his hand, taking Ozpin's. "Thank you for trusting me," Ozpin said, before squeezing James's hand tightly. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." James felt dizzy. Ozpin seemed to be half fading in and out of existence in front of him. And then something inside of him blazed into life. The next thing that he knew, he felt stronger, fitter, and healthier than he had ever felt in his life, and a bright green aura was pulsing around his body.

Pulling his hand back out of reflex, James looked down at his hands, the green glow surrounding them slowly starting to fade away. "What the shit?" he whispered.

"That's your Aura," Ozpin said gently. "I'd say it's around average in strength and size. I've met Huntsman and Huntresses with far weaker Aura than this, but those who were far stronger as well. I suggest you take some time to practice with it. Your Aura can protect you from harm, but not passively. You have to actively maintain it in order to do so. Aside from that, the only thing left of notice is your Semblance. Most qualities of Aura are the same from person to person, varying only in terms of strength, but Semblance is different. It's an ability each person with a strong active Aura has, unique to that person with a handful of hereditary exceptions."

"Ok," James said, feeling mostly confused with a little bit of unexpected excitement being mixed in. As bizarre and somewhat alienating as this whole experience was, the little kid inside of him that had gleefully read whatever scavenged copies of Grognak the Barbarian was practically jumping up and down with excitement at this prospect. "So what's mine?"

"Semblances can't be unlocked the way Auras can. Once your Aura is unlocked, it comes on its own time. Sometimes in the heat of a life or death situation, sometimes in the middle of typical physical exertion, sometimes it just happens. We can't find out yours until it activates." He adjusted his glasses, looking at the Pip-Boy James had taken off. He blinked. "Oh, my. That's odd. It's never happened like this before."

"What?" James said, pulling on the one right glove that he had before sliding his Pip-Boy onto his left arm. And then he saw it. On the screen of the Pip-Boy, Vault-Boy was dressed as a ringmaster, spinning a cane in one hand and holding a top hat in the other, kicking his legs as he did. Words blazed across the screen. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WELCOME TO WILD WILD WASTELAND! ONE SPIN EVERY 24 HOURS, AND YOU'RE ALWAYS A WINNER! SO COME ON DOWN, DON'T BE A STRANGER, AND ALWAYS REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN!" The very center button on the Pip-Boy was now labeled "spin" by the screen, with the rest of the borders of the screen still the same, but with "Wild Wild Wasteland" now crammed into the corner. He looked up at Ozpin. "Is this safe to use?"

"It should be, but just to be safe," he said, taking a few steps forward to the point where he was only a few inches away from James. "My Aura should be more than enough to contain anything that is less than pleasant. Go ahead. See what you've unlocked within yourself." Here goes nothing James thought, pressing the spin button. At once, a virtual slot machine filled up the screen, Vault-Boy in the corner with betting slips in his hands as he chanted silently at the spinning wheels, cheap noises that he had heard constantly from New Vegas slot machines now flooding out of the Pip-Boy.

After a few seconds, all three of the green wheels came to a stop, each one stopping right after the last, and all of them the same. An image of Vault-Boy using a pistol to blast another person into tiny, bloody pieces. "WINNER!" flashed on the screen, and there was a bright flash and a small pop. A magazine appeared in James's free hand. Blinking, he held it up to eye level.

It was indistinguishable from the magazines he used for his rifle, complete with a 12.7mm round poking out of the top, but there was one exception. A sticky note posted to the side with a smiling face on it and two words. "Bloody Mess." Glancing back at the Pip-Boy, he saw Vault-Boy throw up his betting slips and start to do a happy dance between the slot machine vanished and was replaced by a counter that started from 24 hours and began to tick down. "THANK YOU FOR PLAYING! PLEASE COME AGAIN TOMORROW!" Hesitantly, he gave the Pip-Boy a poke. Hitting the spin button did nothing. Hitting the map button brought him back to the map as it normally did, but "Wild Wild Wasteland" was still there in the UI.

He looked at the Bloody Mess magazine again. "I don't think these are normal bullets."

"Most likely not," Ozpin said. "We'll see exactly what they are when we get the chance. I must save Mr. Walker, I've seen many a dazzling Semblance, many an overwhelming Semblance, and many a devastating Semblance. But I think yours takes the prize for being, by far, the strangest Semblance I've ever seen. Only one use every 24 hours? Unlike anything I've ever seen before."

"Seems like a handicap," James said, flicking through the other functions of his Pip-Boy to see if there had been any other changes. "And I'm guessing the slot machine means that whatever it does is random?" Ozpin gave a small shrug. "Not sure how to feel about this. Still, I do appreciate the gesture." He slid the Bloody Mess magazine into his coat. "So, all of this is basically magic," he continued. "Magic is real." That got a very odd reaction out of Ozpin. His smile got a little too wide at that point. "I mean, the closest thing we ever had to this back on Earth were Glowing Ones and a few psychic mutants. It's fucking magic."

"Not exactly," Ozpin said, his smile still just a little too wide. "Magic is still the stuff of fairy tales, this is very different." James had to fight back the urge to roll his eyes. He had seen a girl make a copy of herself out of shadows and he had just pulled a magazine out of thin air. Ozpin could split hairs all he wanted, but magic was magic. "Oh, two more things," Ozpin said, reaching into his pocket and producing the same type of device Blake had used, as well as a small stack of plastic cards. "10,000 Lien and a scroll. You'll be needing both. Lien is our form of money, you can see the number indicating their worth in the corner, and a scroll is a communications device. You can contact anyone else who has a scroll, no matter how far away. It can do a lot more than that, but I don't want to overload you."

"And this is if I take the job?" James asked, looking at the money and scroll. He had no idea how much Lien was worth compared to caps or NCR dollars, but the stack was a little thick, and he doubted he was a small amount. Maybe Ozpin had money to throw around, but James doubted that he would be giving this away idly.

"It's for you even if you don't take the job," Ozpin said. "And one last addition. If you take the job and decide you don't like it in the first month, you can leave with no strings attached and the month's salary." James weighed this. Ozpin really wanted to have him on board. And truth be told, it was sounding like a very good offer. There were just two things holding him back at this point.

"Look. No offense, this place sounds great, but I'd like to get back to my world, however I can," James said. "And I don't know why the Legion was looking at that portal thing and I don't know if any of them went through before I found them. If I'm gonna be spending time in here not going home, I should be looking around to make sure there aren't any legionaries lurking around." Then he remembered that Ozpin had not been in the room when he had explained that to Ironwood. "Legionaries are a bunch of conquerors from my world, slavers, rapists, killers, that kind of stuff. I don't know why they were looking at the portal that brought me here, but it can't be any good."

Ozpin fingered his staff as he looked at James. "Wanting to stop these men is admirable, and wanting to return home is understandable. However, I don't think you're in any condition to do either. Not only do you have no means with which to return home or any resources with which to search for one, you have no idea where these legionaries are. Remnant is massive, and they could be anywhere in it." Ozpin paused, looking as if he was deep in thinking something over. James had a funny feeling that the other man was mentally debating how much information he was willing to share.

"What's more, there's something I feel I haven't explained properly. Teachers at Huntsman Academies aren't simply teachers. We're defenders as well. Grimm breached into Beacon today, and we were on the front lines along with the rest, pushing them back. If this Legion is a threat, I will be looking into it along with James," James groaned internally at the sound of Ironwood's first name. That was going to be annoying. "And with my other contacts. We will find them if they're here. And when we go to deal with them, I'll be needing your experience with them. And I also promise to do everything in my power to help find a way home for you."

Well. Fuck. Best Job offer I ever got in decades. Best offer that wasn't pitched by a prick anyway. There really wasn't anything else to say. "Ok. Ok, you got me," James said. "So. I start tomorrow?"

Ozpin laughed. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but school isn't in tomorrow, and even if it normally was, it would most certainly be canceled after what happened today. On top of that, your Aura will speed up your healing and a doctor who has a healing Semblance took a look at you, but you should still take a day to rest and recover before you start working. In the meantime, I'll arrange to get you a key to one of the spare rooms in the teacher's dorm. I imagine you don't want to stay here overnight."

"Not if I can help it," James said, picking up his helmet and affixing it so that it hung off to his side. "Thank you for this, by the way. I've had complete strangers pull my ass out of the fire before, but it never stops meaning the world to me."

"Oh, I'll be giving you some pointers tomorrow during the day, but there's one thing I think I should mention now. I'm going to have to ask you to not swear in front of the students." James felt himself turn a little pink in the face and nodded. Is it too late to go back on this? Thankfully, at that moment, the door opened, and Blake returned, three other girls right behind her. James blinked as they all filled in, caught off guard by their outfits and just how colorful they were. Red, white, blue, yellow, black, purple, all of it jumped out at him and was far more vibrant than anything he had ever seen in the wasteland. "Ah, girls, just in time to meet the newest member of Beacon's staff. This is James Walker, he'll be working with us as a teacher's aide. I trust you'll give him the same respect you gave me."

"Of course," a girl in white with a ponytail that was the exact same color said. Giving a graceful curtsey, she walked forward and held her hand out. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Walker."

"James is fine," he said, uncertainly taking her hand and shaking it. "Mr. Walker makes me feel old."

"You are old," ED-E beeped from the corner. James flipped ED-E off with his spare hand behind his back.

"Ohhhhhh," a girl in red and black with matching hair and a cape said, noticing ED-E. James started to wonder if it was in style to have your clothes match your hair color, it seemed to be a factor with all of these girls. "What's that? Does he talk?" Walking forward, she held her arms out, her mouth quivering with excitement. "Come on boy, I won't hurt you." Almost at once, ED-E floated down into her hands. "Aw, he's sweet," the girl said, hugging the robot.

"He kinda talks," James said, feeling warm at the sight in front of him. "It's in code though. He can't handle complex speech, so we had to make do with that."

"Hiya!" the last girl, a blonde with hair so absurdly long that it was only one foot away from dragging on the ground, moving forward and grabbing James's hand as soon as the one in white let go of it. The first handshake had been gentle and polite, this one was far more energetic and excited. "Blake told us a lot of crazy stuff about you! It'll be really cool to have you as a teacher."

Blake in the background gave a mildly amused look before pointing to the members of her team. "Ruby Rose, our leader," she pointed at the girl in red. This confused James. Most of the girls looked to be either eighteen or seventeen, but Ruby looked a couple of years younger. "Weiss Schnee," the girl in white, "and Yang Xiao Long. Oh, and Yang and Ruby are sisters." If he had not been told that, James would never have guessed it. The two hardly looked anything alike. They didn't even have the same last name. There was doubtless a story behind that.

"Ruby, is there any chance you could do me a favor?" Ozpin asked. "Our guest here barely knows anything about Remnant. Is there any chance you and your team could take him out into the city tomorrow to get him acquainted with it? Some extra credit could be arranged for it."

Ruby didn't seem to need the incentive, because she had already given a tiny little hop of joy. "Omigosh sure!" she squealed. "Oh boy, we're gonna have to get through so much! Yang, I'm gonna need your help coordinating this! We're gonna need a to-do list in the next hour, stat!" Yang gave her sister an enthusiastic salute before producing a scroll and beginning to type furiously into it, the screen quickly filling up with words. James was trying to wrap his head around technology being able to do that when Ruby turned her attention to Weiss and Blake. "Any suggestions you have, send them to Yang, she'll organize them all."

"She always ignores my ideas," Weiss grumbled, folding her arms in a huff.

"Weiss, none of us know how to ballroom dance," Yang said, not looking up from her scroll or her mile a minute thumbs. "We would've all embarrassed ourselves."

"That's why I wanted you all to take classes first!" Weiss protested. "It's fun and not that hard to learn!"

"Meh," Yang said, continuing her typing. "We're out there too have fun, it's not fun if you need that much prep time." James had a feeling this was going to go on for awhile.

"Well, Mr. Walker," Ruby said. "It's gonna be real fun learning from you! It's pretty impressive that you took out some Beowolves even though you never met them before."

"Wait, I thought they were called Grimm," James said, sounding confused.

"Oh, they are," Ruby said, her bright gaze flickering for a second. "But there's a lot of types of Grimm. Beowolves are one of the more common types, but one of the smaller ones too." Oh, James thought. "Like, you should see a Nevermore or a Death Stalker. They're as big as a truck!" OH!

At that moment, an Atlas soldier walked in with James's rucksack, wordlessly depositing it on the bed before leaving. As he did, James reached into it feeling around until he felt a glass bottle and pulled it out. It was almost empty, a mouthful or two of dark amber whiskey inside. Pulling the cork out, James idly lifted it up to his lips and downed what little was left, his throat burning as it did. "Could you repeat that please?" he said as he lowered the bottle.

"Uh, don't worry, you'll be fine," Ruby said, trying to sound reassuring but not quite managing it. "I mean, we did. And you're way more experienced than us." ED-E nudged her arms, and reluctantly she let him go. The eyebot hovered back over to James before circling his head. "I mean, they all go down if you shoot them enough."

"Well, I suppose I've thrown myself in the deep end and managed to not drown before," James said dryly. "Multiple times. Sometimes with a ball and chain. But hey, what's one more?" I'm going to get myself killed someday, he thought.

"Well, I just arranged a room for Mr. Walker," Ozpin said, pressing his thumb into his scroll. "I'll get him settled in and you four can pick him up in the morning.

"Ok!" Ruby said happily, all four girls waving as Ozpin headed towards the door and James began to follow him. "See you tomorrow Mr. Walker." James waved back at him, wondering exactly where this bizarre turn in his life would take him, and how many new scars he would have when he walked away from it. Assuming he walked away from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize until I started writing this story that James and Ironwood have the same first name. Oops.
> 
> Also there was one stupidly bad RWBYxBloodborne fic I read once that actually introduced an interesting idea. It started with usual badfic tropes, like when the Bloodborne MC gets de-aged to a teenager (because for some reason it was taking after the anime thing where protagonists aren't allowed to look over thirty) and he got folded in Beacon as a student. But then he got made a teacher. In context it was fucking dumb, he quickly proved to be a god awful teacher, except I don't think I was supposed to think that, and he looked like a teenager, so the whole thing was laughable, and with is without getting into what a goddamn edgelord the kid was. But still, the idea of a crossover with the person inserted into RWBY is a teacher instead of another student for the umpteenth time stuck with me. I even toyed with the idea of a Bloodborne character teaching Beacon students about Bloodborne specific enemies just in case the Beast Plague ever spread in Remnant. And now I'm using the idea here, although I plan to toy around with it in ways I don't think you guys will expect. The point is, in my experience a lot of RWBY crossovers who put someone in the world of RWBY like to make the newcomer one of the kids. Personally, I'm more interested in depicting them as part of the older generation.
> 
> Also, I have to say thinking up James's character took a lot more work than I thought it would. I didn't want to just take the Courier and put in whatever character I felt like, I wanted to create a character that felt like a Good Karma, pro-NCR Courier, (albeit one that wonders if he should've gone Independent.) The Courier travels a lot, idly leaving to go on expeditions outside of the Mojave and has been confirmed to have been to Reno in the past, so it sounds like they're a drifter, and therefore so is James. Things like that. I'll be talking more about the decisions I made in his character as the story goes on because believe me, I put a lot of thought into this.
> 
> Also, the added on explanations for Aura are me trying to have it make sense that someone with strong Aura can activate someone else's Aura and why Atlas hasn't done this with every single one of their soldiers for some reason.


	3. Times They Are a Changing

He had been told before he had turned in for the night that Team RWBY, a Team with a spelling that still baffled him because it was pronounced "Ruby" and not however you pronounce an r, w, and b together, would arrive for him at 8 AM sharp. Despite the fact that he had turned in at midnight and had been dead tired, he found himself wide awake at 6:17, aimlessly wandering around his new lodgings. It had been described to him as being like a one person apartment, with one room for sleeping, one for using the bathroom, and a third for everything else. He wasn't quite sure how to react to all of it and had spent the majority of the mourning poking around it.

The kitchen had been a minor treasure trove of wonders for him. A fully functional refrigerator, one stocked with a few complementary foods Ozpin had probably slipped in, a working stove, and heating and air conditioning.

He had been astounded to find a working shower in the bathroom, doubly so when he figured out, quite painfully, that it had hot water. Despite this, it had taken him a good ten minutes of deliberation to decide if he even wanted a shower. Bathing in the wasteland was a rare thing, and it was usually done with soaked rags or sponges. Spraying yourself nonstop while you washed yourself was just such a massive and selfish waste of clean water. But water seemed to be in abundant supply here, to the point where no one was in danger of going thirsty. The idea of there just being that much clean water didn't feel real, and he kept getting bombarded by paranoid thoughts that Remnant didn't have nearly as much clean water as they thought they did and they were wasting it.

Eventually, he had compromised. Instead of using the shower, he had taken a couple of towers and soaked them in the sink, using them and soap to slowly clean himself. Even then, the warm water felt amazing in the towels.

Currently, he was standing in the bathroom, toweling himself off from his bath and sliding his clothes back on. He took a look at himself in the mirror. His hair was getting a little long, both on his head and on his face. He was starting a job tomorrow, so a shave was probably in order. Drawing his combat knife, he approached the mirror and had angled his face to start on his right when he spotted something next to the mirror. A bottle labeled "R. Petrosinella's Shaving Cream" with an odd-looking tool next to it. Picking it up, he turned it over. He remembered his father had once said that his grandfather, James's great-grandfather had shaved with something like this, a weird stick with a couple of horizontal blades in the edges. And somehow the shaving cream helped.

Putting down the odd tool, James picked up the shaving cream and gave an experimental squirt onto his finger. An odd, white, fluffy substance came out. He stared at it, wondering what he was supposed to do. He thought hard back to what his father had said about this, but when the Brahmin had been fed and watered and the family had made camp for the night, his dad had been the type to ramble. The type of person who couldn't tell a simple story without going off on fifteen different tangents, and so James had developed a tendency to tune a lot of it out. He vaguely recalled something about putting it on the stubble you were shaving, so James did just that.

He stared at himself in the mirror for a few seconds with a speck of shaving cream on his face before realizing how utterly stupid he felt. "Fuck it," he said, putting the can down and going back for his knife. Five minutes later, his stubble had been carefully shaved off to the best of his ability with the knife and he had moved onto his hair. Seizing handfuls of it and then slicing through it, James slowly worked his way through his hair until it was at a length he liked.

Sheathing his knife, he took a look at himself. There was still some stubble left, although it was a very thin layer, and his hair was nice and short now. Though, with a pang of annoyance, he realized he had cut off well over half of the last vestiges of his brown hair, not leaving much left. "Fuck," he said, sticking one hand in his hair and moving it around, looking for hidden pockets of brown. He had no such success. "Well, guess I just gotta get used to the gray hair," he grumbled.

Around that point, there was a sharp knock on the door. He checked his Pip-Boy. 8:02. That would be them, assuming someone else hadn't decided to pay him a house call. He made for the door, before pausing to look uncertainly at the corner of the room. There was a weapons locker there, with all of his weapons inside with the exception of his knife and A Light Shining In Darkness, which was strapped to his back. Would carrying around that many weapons be seen as good taste in this world? He didn't know. He stared at the arsenal, taking it all in and wondering, feeling a little lost.

There was another knock on the door. "One second!" he called out. "Screw it," he muttered, approaching the locker and loading himself up with his weapons and munitions, storing the White Fang SMG in his rucksack before approaching the door and opening it.

"Heya!" Four teenage girls were waiting for him on the other side, the one with the absurdly long blonde hair in the front, waving at James. He did a quick mental recount of their names. Yang, Blake, Ruby, Weiss. Again, all of them were wearing outfits that heavily featured colors that matched their hair. James privately thought that he might be onto something with his theory that that was a kind of fashion statement. "Ready to go?" Yang asked. "We're-wait hold up, you carry around that many weapons?" she asked, pointing to James's guns.

He paused, giving the girls a good look over before answering. Blake had her...thing at her side, Weiss appeared to have a rapier, there was a red, blocky thing on Ruby's back, and Yang didn't have any weapons James could see. Apparently, people tended to travel light with weaponry here. Though considering Blake's weapon had somehow managed to double as a ranged and melee weapon, maybe most weapons were just more streamlined. "Yeah. Tended to spend a lot of time away from settlements, didn't know how long it would be or what I would run into, so I wanted to be prepared."

Yang nodded, looking thoughtful. "Ok, I can dig that. What are their names?"

There was a long pause. "I beg your pardon?" Names? What, was he supposed to name his weapons Bob, Jim, and Sarah or something?

"Their names?" Yang replied, sounding as if she didn't understand why James was confused. "I mean, any weapon you trust your life with has to have a name." With a flick of her wrist, Yang's bracelets unpacked, stretching outward to cover her knuckles to a flurry of mechanical clinking. "These bad boys are called Ember Celica."

Weiss drew her sword, and unless James was mistaken, it appeared to have a revolver's cylinder just below the pommel, with objects of bright color in each of the chambers. "Myrtenaster," she said proudly.

Blake unholstered her sword/SMG/grappling hook whatever it was. "Gambol Shroud." James was getting to the point where he was wondering if any of these names meant anything. They sounded impressive, but at this point, all that meant to him was that it was going to be a lot harder to remember them. A thought process that was broken as Ruby revealed her weapon.

Taking the blocky shape off of her back, she gave it a twirl. In a single, fluid, graceful moment, it unfolded into a giant scythe, one that was easily bigger than the girl holding it. It happened so quickly, and the scythe had proven to be so much bigger than it's compact form had implied it was, that James took a step back in shock. Ruby smiled, apparently pleased at the reaction. "Crescent Rose!" she said proudly.

"I see," James said, feeling overwhelmed. "Well, can't say I ever gave my guns names. ‘My rifle' and ‘my shotgun' were always enough for me. Though I sometimes call this gun ‘Therapy' as a joke," he said, pointing at his SMG. The memory of him pumping bullets into the Big Mountain satellite flashed through his mind as he said that. "So I...well now that I think about it, I do have one gun with a name." Reaching around to his back, he drew his pistol from it's concealed position on its back and held it up. "A Light Shining In Darkness" he said. "Six shot magazine, 45. caliber auto pistol, I mainly use it as a holdout."

"That's more like it," Yang said, looking at A Light Shining In Darkness. "So why don't your other guns have names? I mean, if you can come up with names like that, you're pretty good at it. And your other guns deserve names more than a dinky little pistol like that."

James let out a laugh. "Dinky? It's a holdout pistol. A concealed weapon. It's supposed to be on the small side. I can't exactly walk around with a big bulge on my back and try and pass it off as a particularly bad cyst. As for why it's simple really. I wasn't the one who named it. This pistol was a gift from a man I met in my travels. Religious man, damn interesting to talk to, but he was kind of in a dark place when I met him. Let his anger and his pain get the better of him." He looked at the engraving on the side of the pistol. He couldn't read it, but Joshua had told him what it meant. "And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not." He smiled. "But I think he found his way by the time we parted."

"What happened?" Blake asked. There was an odd expression on her face as she said that.

"It's a bit of a long story," James said, tucking his pistol away. "I doubt we have time for it."

"Oh, no no no no no," Yang said, a wide smile on her face. "You can't start with a lead like that and just leave us hanging. We want details, all of them."

James supposed he should've seen this coming. "Ok. But I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon. How's that for a trade, I tell you the story, you tell me where I can get some good breakfast around here." He was pretty sure he had some smoked Gecko wrapped up in his rucksack, but it would be best to save that until he had nothing else left. Aside from that, part of him was rather curious to test out the local cuisines.

Yang snapped her fingers. "Weiss, this one's on you. Make it someplace fancy, but not too fancy."

Almost at once, the white-haired girl had had a strange device, James had to think for a second before remembering it was a scroll, in her hands and was typing into it. "Well H&G's Bakery is open early in the morning, and let me tell you they have pastries to die for, but if that's not your thing I know a couple of local cafes that do standard variety."

"Honestly I'm not picky, you decide," James said, hoping this wouldn't come back to bite him. "Breakfast is on me, I got the cash." He glanced at the bag of Nuka-Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla caps that he had placed on the small table next to his bed. It was frustrating, back home that would've been a small fortune of money, but here it was practically worthless. Still, at least he had some money to replace it. Move on and adapt was the only way forward at the moment.

Weiss lowered her scroll, looking aghast. "We can't let you do that! We just met, and I know your money situation is a little uncertain at the moment." James half wanted to tell her to not rub it in but didn't want to be rude, so he stayed silent.

"Weiss, Weiss Weiss Weiss," Yang said, shaking her head and giving comically overdone tuts. "When a nice man or woman offers to buy you food, you don't turn them down. It's free food Weiss, I can count on my fingers the number of times you should turn down free food."

"You are uncultured," Weiss said in a huff.

"Guilty as charged," Yang said with a wide grin.

Weiss glared at Yang. James wondered if he should intervene, stopping students from bickering would probably be something he would be doing a lot on the new job, but Weiss spoke again before he could decide. "I was going to say that I should pay, seeing as my allowance more than covers a five-person meal, with plenty of wiggle room after that."

That moment was when James knew he had to put his foot down. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm around three times older than you, I'm going to be working with your teachers, and I've got a month's advance burning a hole in my pocket with no rent coming up. It wouldn't be right for me to expect you to foot the bill with your limited allowance." He felt like that was a well-reasoned way to put it, and Weiss didn't strike him as the type of person who would argue too much with an authority figure who was being diplomatic. What he hadn't expected was Yang to burst out laughing.

"Weiss's allowance. Limited. Oh, that's a good one," she choked out between laughs.

"Yang," Blake said, her voice stern. "He doesn't know." Almost at once, Yang stopped laughing.

"Oh yeah. Right. Sorry, forgot," she said, looking guilty. James looked back and forth between all of the girls, feeling thoroughly confused. It was a special type of confusion, the confusion where you were certain that you were the only one in the room that didn't know something, and he didn't even know where to start asking questions. Thankfully, Ruby came to his rescue.

"Weiss's family is kinda rich," she said bluntly. "Like, super rich. Like, there may not actually be anyone in Remnant that's richer than her family. Her dad runs the Schnee Dust Company" James stared at Ruby, then at Weiss. Weiss had a sour expression on her face for reasons James wasn't sure of, but she quickly suppressed it.

"I can assure you that there are richer families out there, I had to sit and listen about my father complain about them for hours on end," she said. "But, as Ruby puts it, my family is indeed super rich. And my allowance reflects that." She produced a card. Where from, James had no idea, Weiss's dress didn't seem to have any pockets or pouches. They had to be hidden somewhere. "As such, I do insist that you let me pay. In a certain sense, you're a guest here in Remnant, and I intend to be a good host."

James wanted to argue against Weiss's suggestion, but with the revelation that her dad was Heck Gunderson on steroids, he felt like he didn't have a good leg to stand on. So, accepting defeat, he nodded. Weiss smiled brightly. "Excellent. To H&G's Bakery, it is!" Turning around with a graceful flourish, she led the way out, James and the others following.

"ED-E!" James called. The eyebot had been resting on James's bed and burst to life as he followed James and Team RWBY out the front door. The light shone down on them as they left, and James put his hand up to shield his eyes. "Question. Does Aura keep you from getting sunburns?"

"Nope, doesn't protect you from something like that. So," Yang said, sliding up to James's side. "I believed you promised us a little backstory for A Light Shining In Darkness?"

James nodded. He had promised. "Did Blake tell all of you about the Legion?" He received a trio of nods. "Right. The Legion was founded by Caesar, but he had a right-hand man called Joshua Graham. For a long time, Joshua fought alongside Caesar as his legate, killing and conquering in his name, until the Legion met the NCR. Joshua led Caesar's army in a battle that was supposed to end the NCR presence in the region. Instead, they ended up walking into a trap and were decimated. Caesar blamed Joshua for the failure, and punished him."

"He tried to kill him didn't he?" Blake said at once.

James nodded. "Key word there is tried. Caesar had Joshua covered in pitch, set on fire, and tossed into the Grand Canyon. The funny thing about Joshua though? He just refuses to die. The NCR thought they had killed him a dozen different times, but he just kept cropping up, and Caesar did not succeed where they had failed. Disillusioned with Caesar, Joshua limped back to his old home, New Canaan. The experience changed him, and he began to atone for what he had done. But Caesar?" His voice grew low. "Caesar is beyond petty. He ordered an attack on New Canaan, used a tribe called the White Legs to do it. They slaughtered everyone they could find, combatant and noncombatant alike, and then salted the earth so nothing could grow there. A lot of the Canaanites escaped, but just as many were killed."

There was an uncomfortable silence from the four girls as they walked through Beacon campus. James had to admit, the place was impressive. Towering buildings in pristine condition and healthy green grass growing all around, but he wasn't focusing on it at the moment. His thoughts were drifting back to Zion. "Then what happened?" Ruby asked, sounding as if she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"Joshua took refuge with a pair of tribes the New Canaanites had been working with and helped them to defend themselves against the White Legs. That's around the point I came in. The White Legs hit a caravan I was traveling with, I was the only survivor." James still sometimes felt bad about the caravan members that had been so unceremoniously gunned down that day. Except for Ricky. Fuck Ricky. James had never heard so much concentrated stupid spew out of someone's mouth before he had met Ricky. And he had met Mr. Fantastic and a talking toaster. "I met up with Joshua and the tribes after that and helped them with the White Legs."

He thought back to Joshua, and how otherworldly the man could seem at times, and yet so very human at others. "He's a hard man to describe. Religious in a time where not a lot of people are and pretty philosophical. But the man was angry. So goddamn angry. A lot of the viciousness from his time in the Legion was still around, he was just channeling it in a more productive way." Unless James was imagining it, Blake looked extremely uncomfortable right now. Her eyes widened and her back stiffened. But when he tried to catch her eye, she looked away. He decided not to press the issue.

"We led a counter-attack on the White Legs and we won pretty by a good-sized margin. But then, Joshua started executing White Legs that had surrendered and was about to kill their leader." He let out a sigh. Salt-Upon-Wounds had been a bastard in every sense of the word. A man that wouldn't have been out of place as a Centurion in the Legion. "It's hard to make calls out in the wasteland. You have to make sure you survive while holding onto your morals, and it's a damn tough tightrope to walk. He led a tribe that slaughtered innocents, but I could see it in his eyes. He was a broken man. His warrior spirit was gone. Killing him wouldn't have accomplished anything. But when I talked Joshua down from doing it, I didn't do it for him. I did it for Joshua."

Words echoed in James's mind. I want to have my revenge. Against him. Against Caesar. I want to call it my own, to make my anger God's anger. To justify the things I've done. "If things had been different, I don't know. I would have never have let Salt-Upon-Wounds leave that valley if there was the slightest hint that he would've gone back to raiding and pillaging. But as it stands, the White Legs collapsed after their defeat, and from what I've been hearing Joshua Graham has become a more tempered person since then. He certainly seemed that way when we parted." He patted the pistol on his back. "With him giving me a gift on the way out."

"Wow," Ruby said, her eyes wide. "How many adventures like that have you been on?"

"More than I can count, but one story's enough for right now," James said. "I...where are we?" He stopped. They had long since left the campus, it was only a tiny block in the distance. He could see the vague outline of a city not far ahead. They were all on a dirt path connecting the two, but it had crossed through a wooded area, thick with trees and foliage. James had seen trees before, but they were all dead and withered. These trees were alive and covered with bright green leaves, the grass around them just as bright. James stared, open-mouthed at it all.

The girls didn't seem to find it particularly impressive. "Oh, just a bit of forest that's between Beacon and the city," Weiss said. "The walk is a little long, sorry about that, but apparently Beacon's founders thought that urban clutter wasn't something they wanted near their school. It does help give off a peaceful atmosphere at times, but it makes the commute a bit of a pain." The four girls moved on, heading in the direction of the city. James stayed where he was.

The forest had an odd smell. A fresh smell of things growing, dying, and growing again. And somehow it smelled a little wet too. He closed his eyes and listened. He heard a happy tweeting noise. Birds, far happier and kinder than the crows he was used to. At that moment, a strong wind blew up. It felt pleasantly cool on James's skin, and it rustled the leaves in the trees softly. His throat felt very tight.

He opened his eyes. A yellow butterfly fluttered in front of his face, hovered there for a few seconds, and then flew off. Somewhere out of sight, he heard grass rustling. No doubt a small animal scurrying about in it. He sniffed. "Mr. Walker? I mean, James?" Blake had doubled back and was now standing in front of him. "I," she paused, then took a step forward in concern. "Are you ok?"

James touched his face. He wasn't sure when he had started crying, but a steady stream of tears was now streaking down both sides of his face. Sniffing again, he rubbed away the tears with the inside of his arm. "I think," he said. "I'm sorry, it just kind of all hit me at once. W-we don't have anything like this where I'm from. Not anymore." He pulled his arm back, wiping away the last of his tears with his hand. "Sorry you had to see a stupid old man getting sentimental on you."

"Please, don't apologize," Blake said, looking deeply concerned. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah," James said, giving a small smile. "Trust me. If I see more like this, I'll never want to leave this place." Blake nodded uncertainty. Blake led the way back to where the rest of Team RWBY had stopped to wait. All of them gave questioning looks, but Blake shook her head. They continued to walk, the city getting close. "Hey, I told you guys a story, any chance I can ask a question in return?"

"What about?" Weiss asked curiously.

"The White Fang, who are they exactly?" James said. "I mean, I think I get the general gist of it. Not very fond of humans. I'm guessing the animal parts make them different from humans and there's some tension there?" He looked around at all four of them. "Help me out here, I'm still mostly in the dark and I want to know which organization I just killed seven members of."

"Nothing you said was wrong," Blake said slowly. "Faunus, they're called Faunus, are looked down on by a lot of humans." James vaguely recalled the term Faunus coming up last night, though if Blake had told him what they were, it had gotten lost in the shock of learning the nature of his situation. "The White Fang used to be a peaceful organization that strove for equality between humans and Faunus. But there was a shift in leadership. Things became more violent. Some members of the White Fang even advocate for Faunus superiority."

"Wait, don't tell me," James said, bitterness seeping into his voice. "And any Faunus that willingly associates with humans, or god forbid is with one romantically, they're a race traitor?" The dog-eared man flashed in his memories.

For a second, James thought Blake was staring at him. Then he realized she was staring at anything in particular, and that her eyes had gone glassy. Before he could voice his concerns though, she refocused on him, and the moment had passed. "I wouldn't be surprised," she said bitterly. "I mean, you saw what I saw yesterday. So many of them just want to hurt and kill people to make themselves feel better. After what they did to Vale, it's clear that they're not very picky about who they target."

"Fantastic," James growled. "Just great. Yeah, this kind of crap happened back where I was from too. Humans, Ghouls, and Super Mutants don't exactly sing and skip under a rainbow. There was this one rumor I heard about what happened on the east coast. I hope it isn't true, but there was apparently a bloodbath over there. Ghouls got let into a safe haven and then massacred all the humans inside. Then someone massacred all of them." Of course, he had only heard one half of the problem. "And humans would have had to do something to push Faunus to this point?"

"Sadly," Blake said. "There are vile, hateful people all over Remnant. Vale's honestly pretty good about it, Faunus can walk around without fear or worry for the most part, but even then you still have thugs like Cardin. And there are no guarantees outside the city." She sighed. The bow on her head twitched. James stared at it for a second before it clicked. Ahhhhhhh. She's got personal investment in this one, he thought."So what's a Super Mutant? And a Ghoul?"

"Lot's of history with the Super Mutants as to where they came from that I'm not ready to go into," James said. "But imagine a person who's eight feet tall, has arms and legs like tree trunks, is bald, dark green, and exposed veins all over. That's a Super Mutant. Ghouls are normal sized, but without their epidermis and probably some of their dermis, and with a raspy voice. They both used to be human. Super Mutants were changed by some artificial chemical thing, and Ghouls were changed by exposure to radiation. Things can get pretty ugly between them and humans, and sometimes even between Super Mutants and Ghouls. A lot of Super Mutants way back when kind of had the whole superior race thing going on too. That's a side effect of you being immortal provided you don't starve or die a violent death. Same thing goes for the Ghouls. I know one that's well over two-hundred years old, the crusty old coot."

"I imagine things are worse when the things that make them different are so noticeable like that, they're impossible to hide," Blake said. As she spoke, she idly adjusted her bow. Ok, that settles it, she's a Faunus, he thought. "But you said you knew one?"

"Yup, name's Raul," James said. "Guy's so old he was around before the war started. Had a Super Mutant in my group of friends too, Lily. Super Mutants technically don't have a biological sex, but she was a woman before she turned and I'm not an asshole. I think you guys would like Raul, provided you ignore he's drier than the Mojave. Figuratively and literally."

"And, we are here!" Ruby announced happily. They had reached Vale. At first, it was scattered buildings, houses mainly, in areas where there was still plenty of trees and grass. Then the buildings got more densely packed, the grass was swallowed up by streets and sidewalks, and swarms of people filled the streets. James's eyes narrowed. This he knew. Aside from the fact that the buildings were better maintained and there were a lot more people, this reminded him a lot of Freeside. His eyes darted from alleyway to alleyway, keeping an eye out for anyone who might decide they were an easy mark. He rested his hand on the handle of his SMG, just in case he had to draw it in a hurry.

"What's up?" Ruby asked, apparently having noticed James's behavior. All of the girls were looking at him again.

"Just making sure no one decides to stick a knife between our ribs," he replied. "We've all got a lot of hardware here, it'd fetch a good price on an underground market." One would think that no one would dare to attack a group this heavily armed, but desperation could drive people to do just about anything. James himself had been attacked in Freeside by thugs with pipes even though he had been armed, armored, and with company.

"Uh. That doesn't happen here. At all," Weiss said uncertainty. "I mean, sure, walk down a dark alley at night and who knows what happens, but in Vale? In broad daylight? In public? That just isn't something you worry about in Vale."

"....Oh," James said, taking his hand off of his SMG. He felt stupid. The logical part of his brain told him that he had been going on decades of instinct and that no one had told him that crime wasn't a factor here. The rest of him couldn't help but realize that this was the second time this morning that Team RWBY had stopped to wonder if everything was all right with him. It was getting to the point where he was wondering if everything was all right with him. Even as they continued to walk, him receiving an occasional backward glance from the girls, he couldn't help but keep watching the alleys out of the corner of his eye. Not having to worry about being attacked? At all? It didn't feel real. Nothing about Remnant felt real.

Mercifully, his mind was taken off his distressing topic by Ruby. "Oh my gosh. Emerald? EMERALD!" She started waving enthusiastically. There was a small, one-story building not far ahead. A sign labeled "H&G's Bakery" was hanging over it, and a small group of people was right in front of it. They were all noticeably older than Team RWBY, at least in their mid-twenties and possibly older. A man in gray with matching hair, a woman with jet black hair and a brownish vest with black pants, and a woman with green hair, dark skin, and a bizarre top that didn't cover much. James had to take a double take at the last woman, unable to believe his eyes. Was that hair really green?

The woman turned as he was wondering it. Apparently, she was Emerald. Yang fell back in the group to where James was and leaned towards James and whispered to him. "Emerald," she pointed at the green haired woman, "Mercury," the man in gray, "Cinder," black haired woman. He gave a nod of appreciation.

"Hey Ruby, good to see you!" Emerald said as they approached. She had an overwhelmingly bubbly feel to her, one that brought smiles to all four members of team RWBY. Even James felt his lips curling upward as the woman beamed at them all. "Who's your friend? A father? Uncle?"

"Nah, nothing like that, just a guy who's starting work at Beacon," he said. "I'm...not from around here," he said. After all the embarrassing moments he had had this morning, he didn't feel like going into too much detail about his situation again. The broad strokes would be enough. "Kind of ended up here without having a lot of say in the matter, don't really have a way home at the moment, so I'm working at Beacon for the moment." He looked at the three of them. Emerald was looking at him with the same unfocused happiness she had been showing since she had noticed Team RWBY, while Cinder was silently eyeing him with interest. Mercury wasn't paying any attention to him, Team RWBY, or his companions.

In fact, at that moment, James noticed he was setting up a chess board on a table outside the cafe. Opposite him, a positively ancient old man, wrinkled and balding, was setting up his end of the pieces, albeit at a far slower rate. The man was covered from head toe in robes and was wearing black gloves, meaning his head was the only part of his body uncovered. Even then, a pair of sunglasses was resting over his eyes. Every time he put up a chess piece, he physically felt for it, grasping two or three times before he could find it. Every once in awhile, a woman behind him would step in to help.

She had fiery red hair that was in a very odd style. Some of it in elegant braids, while the rest of it hung wild and free. She wore an outfit that was a very dark red and seemed to be made out of some kind of leather, bared her arms, and had a pair of hand axes hanging from her back. But what was truly striking about her was that every exposed inch of skin was covered in tattoos. Bright blue tattoos that were a jumble of shapes that James couldn't follow, but had an organized chaos look to it. As James looked, she helped the old man put the final piece into place. "Ah, there we go," the man said in a soft voice. "Remind me, I'm black?"

"Yeah yeah," Mercury said, his voice positively oozing with apathy. Picking up one of his pawns, he moved it forward. "Pawn to f3."

"What's going on here?" Ruby asked with curiosity, stepping up to the chess match and watching it.

The old man chuckled. "I overheard an argument between these fine young ladies and gentleman. One of them said her companion was so bad at chess that he couldn't even beat a blind man.”

"Well, hate to say it, it's true," Emerald interjected. "Mercury is pretty bad at chess. Stupidly so."

The old man chuckled again. "I recall more colorful language. But I was interested. I have a sense of humor, so I thought I'd put her claim to the test." Gently feeling the top of his chess pieces, he found one of his pawns and moved it forward two spaces. "Pawn to e5."

"Emerald likes to run her mouth, anything to make her eat her words is fine by me," Mercury said, still sounding like he couldn't care less about anything if he tried. With a bored look, he glanced at the board and moved a pawn two spaces forward. "Pawn to g4."

"A fair stance," the old man said, feeling for his pieces again and then taking his queen. "Queen to h4. It was a fun match. Sadly I think your friend might have been onto something. I mean no offense, but you literally could not have made a worse opening move than that."

"Hm?" Mercury said, looking down at the board. "What do you mean?" James did a quick look at the board, seeing if there was any move that Mercury could make. When he had moved his two pawns forward, he had left open a path to his king, and the old man had moved his queen there. It had a direct line of attack to the king, and Mercury could neither move his king nor get another piece in front to protect it.

"Checkmate," the old man said simply. "I hate to say it, but your friend was right. You can't even beat a blind man." Emerald's smile took on a very smug air. Mercury gave a disinterested sigh.

"Whatever," he said, getting to his feet.

"So, are you all students at Beacon too?" James said, doing his best not to laugh at Mercury's pitiful display in chess. Two moves. Checkmated in two moves. He barely played chess and he was certain that even he could have made it to five.

"Oh no, we go to Haven Academy," Emerald said. "We're in town for the Vytal Festival." James nodded, hoping that it would be convincing enough to hide the fact that he had no idea what a "vital festival" was. He was pretty sure you didn't need festivals to live. "Though we've been dropping into Beacon classes a lot, can't fall behind on our educations. So who knows, we might see you."

"Huntsmen and Huntresses in training then?" the old man said from where he sat. The redheaded woman behind him handed him a drink, James wasn't sure when she had gotten it because she hadn't had it before, tapping him gently on the shoulder. The old man took it, happily slurping on the straw sticking out of it. "Mmm, thank you Róta. Well, that's interesting. Shame I won't be in town for the festival, Róta and I need to head back to Mantle well before then."

"Oh, you're from Mantle?" Weiss asked, perking up as the man spoke. "I thought that you might be from Mistral."

The man smiled as he looked at Weiss. "Indeed young lady. I used to be from Mistral, but I immigrated to Atlas when I was a child." He lowered his drink. "Oh, where are my manners. I'm Tsung-Han. You can call me Han. I know manners would indicate you call me Tsung, but I was never bothered by that." He took another long sip. "My friend here is Róta Bloodaxe, I met her up in Mantle." Róta gave a small bow.

"Wait, seriously?" James said before he could stop himself. "Bloodaxe?"

Róta smiled silently at him. Thankfully it wasn't an "I'll rip your head off if you say one more word" smile, but a smile of actual amusement. "Her people, a small isolated tribe, had a leader in their history that used that name. Her family adopted it." Another long drink. "So, is anyone else up for a game? I can squeeze in one more before Róta and I need to catch our flight back home."

"Not me," Mercury said, getting up without a backward glance. "Cinder, you said we had to be somewhere?"

"I did," Cinder said. Still smiling, a smile that was rather disarming in ways James couldn't put into words, she held out her hand to him. "I look forward to seeing what you bring to Beacon Academy." Smiling, James took her hand and shook it. Giving a gesture for the rest of her team to follow, Cinder walked away, Mercury and Emerald right behind her. James watched them go, feeling a strange mixture of emotions inside of him. Emerald seemed nice, Mercury seemed like a bit of a jerk who never grew out of his broody teenage years, but Cinder made him feel uneasy.

"Well!" Weiss said, stepping forward and sitting down opposite Han. "I'll happily play you, sir!" She reset the board, a very brief process, before handing her card to Blake, who took it. "I think five cinnamon buns for all of us should be enough," she said as Han slowly moved his own pieces into place. Blake nodded and moved into the store as Weiss made her first move, calling it out for Han. Then Han made his move. A brisk pace quickly developed, with it becoming clear that Weiss wasn't the novice that Mercury was. A pile of captured black chess pieces started to pile up to her right, with Han's queen topping the pile.

But Han was matching her blow for blow, and for every one of his pieces Weiss managed to take, she was forced to give up one of hers in return. A good five turns passed with Weiss holding her queen back in order to keep it the fight, only for Han to finally take it after sacrificing one of his rooks as bait. Weiss's eyes were boring down onto the board in laser focus as she began to take longer and longer to plan out her moves, even though the board was starting to become very sparse.

Han seemed to be having the time of his life, chucking every time he lost a piece, and taking long sips of his drink as he did. "Don't remember the last time I played someone who gave me this much of a thrashing," he said cheerfully. "If you're this good now, I can only imagine how good you'll be twenty years from now." When Blake emerged from the bakery with five bulky pastries in hand, Weiss barely paid attention as one was handed to her along with her card. She took one bite before moving her last knight to take Han's last bishop.

He grinned. "I was hoping you'd do that. I needed a distraction." He moved one of his two remaining pawns forward. "May I have my queen back please?" Weiss's face turned pale as she silently took Han's pawn off the board, replacing it with his queen. "Well, your move."

Weiss took a deep breath, a large bite of her roll, and looked silently at the board. There were a grand total of six pieces left. Both kings, a pawn and a bishop for Weiss, a pawn and a queen for Han. James took his roll but didn't take his eyes off the board. There was a certain magic in watching a bout of skill that was way above your level, and Weiss and Han were mesmerizing to watch. That being said, things did seem to have finally peaked in Han's favor. But Weiss didn't seem ready to give up.

She moved her king back a space, out of range of his queen, right into the corner of the board. "I know what you're trying to do, lure my queen into a spot where your bishop can get her. Well, I'm not falling for that trap." Instead, he moved his own bishop to claim Weiss's remaining pawn. With a swift move, Weiss moved her bishop, taking his in return. "And with that, your last major piece falls." His queen took her bishop. "Make your move."

Weiss only had her king left, boxed onto the corner of the board. Despite this, she leaned back into her chair, folding her arms, looking proud of herself. "I can't." James looked more closely. Weiss's king was still in the corner. Han's queen was two above and one to the left of it. Every spot Weiss could move her king to was in the range of the queen, but the space it was already on wasn't. James blinked. He was pretty sure this meant that Han had won, but no one else seemed to be reacting that way. Han himself was reaching across the board, touching the pieces to remind himself where they were.

Then he let out a laugh. "Well well. You can't put your own king in check, can you? It's a draw then."

Weiss nodded, holding her hand out for Han to shake. "Good game." Han nodded in return. Weiss continued to hold her hand out, waiting for the shake to come, but it never did. Behind Han, Róta's eyes to Weiss, before jerking her head in the direction of Han's. Specifically, at his sunglasses. Weiss's face turned bright red as she slowly lowered her hand. Desperate for something else to do, she picked up her bun and took a large bite of it. Seeing her eat, James remembered that he had a bun of his own and started to eat it without looking.

He had chewed for half a second before an explosion of flavors hit his tongue. Deliciously sweet and wonderfully warm, the bun tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. "God. They don't have anything like this back in my world." He regretted saying that almost at once.

"World?" Han said, turning in James's direction, Róta doing the same. James fought back the urge to groan.

"It's hard to explain, and honestly I've been through too much in the past 24 hours to have the strength to go through it all. But let's just say...I used to be from another place and an incident made me end up here. Not sure if I'll be getting back anytime soon, if at all." He looked down at the bun in his hands. It was a rich dark brown, sticky to the touch, and covered in white cream. He had never had anything this expertly prepared to eat back in the Mojave. "It's been a tough time, I'm not going to lie."

"Sounds like you're going through a lot," Han said. "But I've been through hard times myself and I've a bit of advice for you. Always push forward. No matter how hard it feels, no matter how much you feel like you should just give up, always push forward."

"And besides, you've got people who will help you out!" Ruby said excitedly. "We can't just let you do all of this by yourself."

James grinned. "Well, got me there." He took another bite of the bun. It really was good.

"I'm sure you'll find a way back to your Earth in no time," Han said. "But I think now should be a time of relaxation. Let the worries come another day. You're working with these young ladies tomorrow? I think they should be sharing some of their experiences as Huntresses with their new instructor."

"Well, if we're gonna be telling him about how awesome team RWBY is, maybe we should tell him about the time we fought a giant robot on the highway?" Yang said, flashing that grin that she seemed to have honed to perfection. "Thing was as big as a house and we still took it down. Not a scratch on any of us. Or about the time we fought another one on top of a train that the White Fang was using."

"You're kidding me," James said, staring at her.

"Nope!" Yang said cheerfully.

"It's worth pointing out that the latter one happened the day we met you," Blake said. "So we all were having a pretty stressful day that day."

"In that case I think we better talk about something else," James said, searching his brain for light-hearted stories to share. There were half of the things Cass spewed out when she was getting tipsy. All things that would get him fired in a heartbeat. There was Fisto. No, that still fell into the realms of "I am tired of being employed." Ricky, no, fuck Ricky. Well, if no one else had anything, he supposed he could always talk about a man and his obsession with Dinky the Dinosaur. Thankfully he was spared from the nightmare that was trying to psychoanalyze Cliff Briscoe.

"Oh, we gotta tell him how we got bunk beds set up in our rooms," Yang said. "We barely got all of the books in place." James had a sinking feeling in his stomach as she said that. But he pushed it aside, deciding to give Yang a chance to explain herself. Then the blonde went into depth. It was worse than he had thought. Much worse. He could have given them credit for the books. But then they started talking about pulley systems and anchors, and a horrible accident waiting to happen entered his mind.

"Might I suggest you, uh, fix that?" he said. "I really don't want to start class only for Weiss to come tearing into the room, saying that something horrible happened to Ruby."

"But I'm the one who sleeps on the top bunk," Ruby said, "and besides, they've held out for months."

"I really hope me giving advice and being ignored isn't going to be a pattern," he said. "Is there anything else about your living conditions that I should be concerned about?" As he spoke, he checked the time on his Pip-Boy. 8:35. It was hard to imagine that not even half an hour had passed since they had set out.

"Um, Mr. Walker?" Ruby asked, glancing at the device. "I've been meaning to ask, what is that?" Blake, Weiss, and Yang all turned their attention to the Pip-Boy. The looks of curiosity and excitement in all of their eyes told James that this was something they had wanted to ask him for a long time.

"Pip-Boy," he said. "Kind of a multi-tool. Map, clock, monitors my vitals, useful stuff like that," he said. "Plays music too. Radio and tape." To emphasize his point, he hit the button on the side and opened the holo-tape slot on the back of the Pip-Boy. The mixtape he had was still in there. "That's one of the better tapes I managed to get my hands on. 128 kilobytes of memory, it wasn't cheap. I'm told some can hold 256, but I doubt I'll ever find someone who will be willing to part with one that good. But hey, I've got a few dozen songs at my beck and call now. Also, I think I got some tapes with a game or do in my rucksack somewhere."

Slapping the case slot shut, James hit the play button. I got spurs, that jingle jangle baby, jingle jangle. He relaxed a bit as the familiar tune played for a few seconds before it turned it off. "Pretty cool huh?" he asked, looking around. The reactions where not what he had been expecting. Weiss was smiling at him politely and looked like her face was about to snap in half from the effort, Blake was doing everything she could to avoid eye contact, Ruby was staring at him in disbelief, and Yang was fighting down a fit of giggles. "What?" he asked, confused.

"Um, oh geez, how to put this," Yang said, choking out the words through giggles. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out what looked like a rectangular computer part and her scroll. "See this stick here? I used it to let Ruby upload some of my favorite songs the other day. It holds 128 gigabytes of memory. I even saw one that held 256 gigabytes, but that was a little too expensive for what I needed. I mean, seventy Lien? I'm not made of money." She pressed a few buttons on her scroll, causing a cheery, upbeat song that James didn't recognize to play. Come at me. And you'll see. I'm more than meets the eye. After a few lines, Yang turned it off. "So, uh, Ozpin gave you a scroll right? You might want to look at it and see exactly what it can do. No offense, but pretty much everything you just mentioned? A scroll can do it better, with the exception of monitoring vitals."

Without a word, James walked to the table where Han and Weiss were sitting, sat down, and looked up at the sky in disbelief. He lamented that it was far too early to go get a drink. Han chuckled again. "Getting old sucks, doesn't it? All the young people have such fancy gadgets that you barely understand. Just be thankful your body doesn't hurt all the time." He glanced over his shoulder in the general direction of Róta. "Speaking of which, the old aches are starting to come on." Róta nodded and produced a lighter and a cigarette for Han. Except on closer inspection, it wasn't a cigarette. It was a joint. "Helps with the old pains," he said as if he could tell James was flabbergasted, lighting it as he spoke. "Don't worry, nothing here will pollute the lungs of your students."

James went back to looking at the sky. "Hey," Yang said softly. "I can show you how to show how to set up your scroll?"

The young lady is helping the old fart with technology. Well, you should've seen this day coming to James, he thought to himself. "Sure," he said.

XXXXX

"So, thoughts on the new guy?" Mercury asked, his hands behind his head as he walked. "Seemed like a pretty basic old coot to me, but he was carrying a lot of weapons. What's Ozpin playing at?"

"Let's see what General Ironwood thinks about this," Cinder said, flicking through the scroll in her hands. Her backdoor into Ironwood's systems was still active, and still undetected. It brought her pride to see that, a feeling of power. She was right under Ozpin's nose and idly reading the secure files of one of his most trusted allies. Quite a few files had been added since yesterday, and while most of them were dedicated to the White Fang, there was one that was labeled "Walker." Opening it, she was greeted with a picture of Walker lying in a hospital bed, a large wound in his chest, and a wall of text of the general's notes.

She read them quickly, and a downright preposterous narrative was unfolded before her. "Well well," she said, sounding amused. "It appears Mr. Walker is a dimension hopper. He claims to be from another world where society has collapsed, and he fought against a conquering band of tribes." She scrolled through the rest of Ironwood's notes. "And Ozpin employed him at Beacon after hearing this. And both him and Ironwood seem to be entertaining that what he's saying is true." She noted a large red note at the bottom of the report. "Maintain observations where possible." She chuckled. "Though Ironwood doesn't fully trust him."

"Wait, so they pick up a bag of bones that's obvious cracked in the head and Ozpin gives him a job?" Mercury shrugged. "I was starting to feel like all of this was going too easily, and now it makes sense. Ozpin's lost it. Maybe he used to be someone worthwhile at some point, but at this point, he's just a senile old man who's taking in any lunatic who came his way. Honestly, Walker should be in an asylum."

"As much as I hate to side with the guy who literally couldn't beat a blind man in chess," Emerald said, "but I think Mercury's right. I mean, come on. Another world? My bet is he lost everyone he knew in the attack on Vale and he came up with all of that garbage as a coping mechanism. To distance himself from it all."

"I'm not so certain," Cinder said. "Ozpin and Ironwood are both arrogant, but they're not stupid. Something is rather odd about this Walker fellow. It really does just say like he did just pop up out of nowhere. Keep an eye on him. We might learn something interesting that way. But in the end, he's just another pawn on Ozpin's side of the board. A pawn in the game we're not playing anymore because we've moved onto bigger things. Just make sure he's not a bigger threat than either of them realize."

She exited out of the Walker file. He was an interesting anomaly, one that she did need to keep an eye on, but she had more important things to worry about. She flicked back to her messages, and to the one labeled Adam. No new messages. She frowned. "Adam still hasn't made contact with us," she said. "It's been nearly a whole day since the attack. He's late." A twinge of annoyance flared up in her gut. She had been very clear to Adam when she had swayed the White Fang to her side. She would provide them with supplies and weapons, but they answered to her now. And Adam seemed to need a reminder.

Mercury seemed to read her mind on that one. "Maybe he needs a few more dead henchmen? Then again, it might not make much of a difference to him, considering how many of his wannabe terrorists are now dead in a collapsed tunnel."

"I think Adam needs to personally learn the price of disobedience," Cinder said coldly, a dozen different ideas flipping through her head. "We thought we could teach the White Fang a lesson bottom up. I think it's time to try top down."

"I think I know why he's not responding," Emerald said. Cinder turned and say Emerald on her own scroll, holding it out to Cinder. "Look at this." Cinder took the scroll. It was a news article, one that had an image of a burning village. "White Fang attack village, killing dozens. Many bodies found beheaded and mutilated. Bite marks suggest dogs were set on unarmed villagers." Emerald lowered her scroll. "That's the second attack they've launched after the one on Vale didn't work. I think they're out for revenge."

That made sense. It was the kind of counterproductive and impulsive action a simple mind like Adam would take. "I think we need to pay Adam a visit the next time we get a chance. And maybe this time, we leave a new leader in charge of his little fiefdom."

Mercury perked up at this. "All right, this is more like it. When do we head out?" In so many ways, Mercury was similar to Adam, just with better impulse control. Still, both of them were easy to manipulate

"Not just yet, we have more important things to worry about. There are only three weeks until the Vytal Festival, and it'd draw too much attention for us to go missing now. Adam was only ever a bit player in our plans there, so we'll deal with him after that. In the meantime though, there is something regarding the White Fang I want the two of you to deal with. Tomorrow, I want you to search the city for any dens of White Fang activity, and snuff them out. Let's give him one last chance to remember his place. We may even be able to bring him to us and deal with him ahead of time."

"Can do," Mercury said, cracking his knuckles.

"Anything for you Cinder," Emerald said.

Cinder turned, making a point of doing it slowly, and looked at both of them. "You two are beyond important for what I have planned. Never forget that." Mercury rolled his eyes at this, but Emerald beamed at her, her eyes shining. It was like giving a scrap of food to a starving dog. Instant results for little effort. "In the meantime, focus on the Festival. Enjoy Walker's contributions to class tomorrow, but remember that he's just a sideshow. And that he'll burn with the rest of Ozpin's entourage." Walker would fall for siding with Ozpin, but only because Ozpin was a lost cause, a ship about to sink, dragging everyone on board down with him. In the end, they all only had themselves to blame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I consider New Vegas to be a lot more interesting than Fallout 3, but part of me wishes I was working with the Lone Wanderer this chapter. Why? Because when the White Fang came up, the Lone Wanderer would be able to bring up a personal experience they had gone through. Two words. Roy. Phillips. That fucking monster. Only "bad karma" kill I did with zero regret in that game. That would be a gold mine to explore with a RWBY and Fallout 3 crossover, because the comparisons between Roy and Adam would be enough for a stand-alone story.
> 
> Also I get the feeling that Weiss and Han would both be labeled as beginner level chess players for letting the match drag out to a point where there was barely anything left on the board (gut feeling here, not a chess expert) but that was a necessary evil so I could let the reader know what was going on without having an entire chess match play out. Doing that is ok when you have one person fall into a Fool's Mate, not so much when it's an actual serious match. Without a board in front of you guys, a chess match would be boring as sin to follow play by play.
> 
> Also, old man doesn't know how to smart phone.
> 
> I would like to thank my Patrons, SuperFeatherYoshi, xXNanamiXx, RaptorusMaximus, Davis Swinney, Mackenzie Buckle, and Josue Garcia for their amazing support.

**Author's Note:**

> To an outside observer, Old World Blues is hilarious. But I imagine actually experiencing it would be hell on Earth. Trapped in a facility with a bunch of crazy brains in jars caught up in their private war, you can barely reason with any of them, their creations are all running amuck, you've been cut open and had body parts removed without your consent, when you think about it, it's a damn traumatizing experience.
> 
> I don't remember a lot of Starship Troopers from when I read it back it high school (I was severely disappointed by the shortage of power armor on bug violence, which was why I picked it up) and while I was reading about it to see what I had forgotten, I found something interesting. A talking time bomb that announces that it's a time bomb? I'll be damned if that doesn't sound perfect for Fallout America. Though I imagine the Starship Troopers bomb was more to the point but hey, it's only a prototype here.
> 
> Also, in regards to James having a metal skull, if you get your brain back in Old World Blues, you get an increased damage threshold and can't get a crippled head, with the damage threshold increase being even bigger than if you keep the artificial brain. The only way in which keeping the artificial brain is better is that you can't get addicted to chems with it. The only logical conclusion I could draw from that, with the Big Brained perk having description that "some of the advanced technologies remain," is that the auto-doc that operated on the Courier replaced all of the Courier's upper skull with a highly durable metal, mainly the parts you would have to remove in order to extract the brain. Best explanation I could come up with for how a shotgun blast to the face can no longer cripple.
> 
> Also also, I decided to make James on the older side because A. it's something that doesn't happen anywhere near often enough and B. the very first time I played New Vegas, I played as an older man (which basically means I gave my character gray hair, because the age slider in that game is beyond useless.) I ended up taking a great deal of offense when Caleb McCaffery referred to my character as kid. It's a shame there's no mod to use Terrifying Presence to say "Who the fuck are you calling kid, boy?" Ideally following it up with a bitch slap.
> 
> Also also also, I realized something when this chapter was that James was using Randall Clark's rifle and armor to protect kids, and it's kind of stupid, but I was reading the Feels thread on Space Battles when I realized this and I kinda got choked up when thinking about it. I swear to god I didn't do that on purpose, it just kinda fell into place.
> 
> Also also also also I know it's Wild Wasteland and not Wild Wild Wasteland, but I honestly thought it was Wild Wild Wasteland for a long time, I'm used to saying it, and I think it sounds snappier. So I 'm going with that.
> 
> I would like to thank my Patrons, SuperFeatherYoshi, xXNanamiXx, Ryan Van Schaack, RaptorusMaximus, Davis Swinney, and Mackenzie Buckle for their amazing support.


End file.
